>>4135249
Island-hopping our way to the continent, we made land-fall on a seemingly more hospitable island to restock our larders more properly, and to take stock of our people. We discovered ancient ruins replete with iron and blue-grey jade, domesticable pig-rats and fowl, and even took the time to found a new religion based on principles of individual self-improvement and strength of character: Amican Reformism! However, a subsequent celebration of this new religious fervor led to the spread of an ape-originated STD through our people, and the depletion of our contraceptive herbs. When all else failed, we turned to blood magic and the sacrifice of animals and ape-men to resolve both these problems, despite the rumoured risk of dire effects upon the souls of our people and our tiny nation. We left "Victory Island" behind too, for now, determined to make for the continent proper befroe further complications could arise.
After nearly a year at sea, we arrived on those eastern, pine-forested shores in a rainy land bordered by marsh, mountains, and woodlands, and we established Georgetown! We studied magic, agriculture, animal husbandry, and grew more comfortable, despite the presence of a mysterious stranger about our shores, seemingly a spirit of blood magic drawn to us by our dark spellcraft. Weestablished a colony on Victory Island, The Prince married a human noblewoman named Josephine, and we made peaceful contact with telepathic wolf-men native to these woods.

suck my dick op

>>4135252
However, when our religiously-fractious human power base grew concerned about demographic changes, we turned again to blood magic to increase their fertility so they would not be supplanted by goblins as the majority race. The results were mixed: a success, to be sure, but achieved through the monthly birth of black-eyed and red-haired twins to random human households, and the energies and scent which resulted made the "lupins" fearful of us. We swore off of blood magic altogether, but even this proved dangerous: determined not to risk further temptation, we destroyed a powerful blood magic artefact our adventurers uncovered, and the spirit within cursed our Prince and Princess' heir, and the bastard child he had sired with Krazir, with blood red skin, sharp teeth, and featureless shark-black eyes.

Seeking a cure for Prince George's children, we journeyed north and even down beneath the earth, into caves held to be home to an ancient progenitor race well-versed in blood magic, who might offer a cure. The North proved fruitful enough to warrant an eventual settlement for exploration and trade with other lupins and with a mysterious far-north race of humanoids, but the caves (though rich in gems and metals) brought only hardship: the "mothers of fathers" of lupin legend turned out to be a xenophobic race of short, subterranean elves we dubbed "redcaps." Our expedition to request their aid ended in war and death, which persists in skirmishes and a magical and explosive arms race which dominated the end of our second year abroad, and carried well into our third. No cure was found, and we were forced to abandon our heir to be raised as Krazir's son, but the conflict DID prompt us to ally more closely with the local lupins and to recruit mercenaries from our home continent to aid us and bolster our numbers, and from their joining came new metallurgical secrets and magicks!

Even now, though, our situation is precarious: our spies have braved the darkness beneath the mountains to discover the redcaps and "the mysterious stranger" so tied to blood magic have created from our captives a fighting force of mutated, savage undead berserkers, and that they are preparing to unleash these monsters in tandem with their superior forces in a potentially-devastating winter war.

So Month 10 of Year 3 arrives: beneath the darkness of hanging clouds and harbingers of a potentially bleak fate for Georgetown and its people.

The Council has been called to order, the crown's course of action yet undecided.

What will we do?

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A. The Redcap War continues to dominate the thoughts of our people, and the council, even with no active skirmishes this month. Petard research has borne some fruit, but our non-magical explosives are of questionable compatibility with our magical ones, and are presently less reliable, though with time (and more mining operations for necessary elements) they would be cheaper to mass produce. The question is, do we have the time?
A1. Prepare an all-out offensive on the Redcaps this month, before they can ambush us with vampiric monsters
A2. Hold our defenses, focus on our researches, and prepare for their inevitable assault
A3. Send our spies back to study our enemies further, and to give us advance notice
A4. Attempt diplomacy again, to stave off this winter war
A5. Summon The Mysterious Stranger through blood magic, to get answers
A6. Other (write-in)

B. Princess Josephine has become pregnant again! This means the possibility of a non-cursed heir... Assuming that whatever transmogrified her firstborn son does not still flow in her veins, and assuming that the incoming redcap assault causes no problems. Both these fears clearly play upon her slowly-mending psyche, and cause Prince George no shortage of concern either. What shall we do?
B1. Offer assurance that all will be well; there is no need for these fears to dominate our minds unduly, and we have greater concerns
B2. Devote the efforts of our healers and blood-mages to monitoring the Princess and her pregnancy, to ensure the health of the child
B3. Send Princess Josephine to one of our other settlements (which on?) for her safety in this time
B4. Other (write-in)

C. Fears that our force will be overwhelmed by the greater and more-advanced Redcap army are not without basis. Some in our military note that, just like Georgetown's children proved useful to help keep our farms functional, they may also prove integral to our defences as warriors. However, this is to the greater consternation of many parents, who would already fear for their children's lives in the event of an invasion. What shall we do?
C1. Press the pre-teen youth as soldiers for the upcoming battle
C2. Keep the youth innocent of this bloodshed if possible, but continue to use their labor for civilian purposes
C3. Send Georgetown's children to take refuge in our other settlements for now
C4. Allow the children to return to their studies and household duties around Georgetown once more

D. How shall we direct our people to focus their efforts this month? Pick four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Carouse to raise morale
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. Other (write in)

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>>4135257
BONUS: Feel free to weigh in on the fate f our Redcap prisoners, if you wish any action to be taken against them (or using them) this month!

(And please note: we'll count the last two votes from the archived first thread, so feel free to break that tie or to vote all on your own for a new course.)

>>4135253
Sorry I was absent for a couple days--it's been busy and I'm pretty sure I had The Corona for a bit.

>>4135257
>A1. Prepare an all-out offensive on the Redcaps this month, before they can ambush us with vampiric monsters

>B2. Devote the efforts of our healers and blood-mages to monitoring the Princess and her pregnancy, to ensure the health of the child

>C2. Keep the youth innocent of this bloodshed if possible, but continue to use their labor for civilian purposes

no preference on D

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>>4135411
>>4135257
Unable to decide what to do about the redcap prisoners as their fellows loom over us like a spectre, we opt to stay the course: we continue to proselytize about our way of life, to maintain their fickle loyalties with the attention of our brothel workers and escorts, and to hold them in reserve as an emergency source of sacrificial material if things get REALLY dicey.

As it is, we can hardly focus on such a secondary concern. Now is a time for action, and for war. For the same reason, we send our Princess away to Victory Island. She and the heir forming within her are too precious, and too great a source of concern for the Council and the Prince, to be left to the whims of fate. Accompanying her, we also send the mercenary scholar, blood mage, and healer Afraah al-Samaan, who was instrumental in curing the blood-plague which the redcaps' spider-bombs spread. al-Samaan is tasked with ensuring the health of Princess Josephine and her unborn child, in the hopes of earning her citizenship and perhaps even a title of great import.

We drill our youth between crown-mandated shifts on the farms and at the seashore, and train what civilians we can into a militia worth fighting alongside. By the time we're done, almost half of all our working-age population are trained warriors, if not necessarily the fiercest or most seasoned fighting force our Prince has ever led into battle. Morale continues to plummet under these conditions, but it frees up more of our already-trained soldiers, smiths, and mages to focus on their research into more powerful mundane explosives, and especially into offensive and defensive casting.

While our "Iron Lord" al-Khalaf and the goblin mage Lord Wysard believe they may yet achieve a breakthrough in the former, they require more materials from below the surface of the earth or the high mountains than we can provide under current conditions; thus, it is magic where we strike a real breakthrough: while we already knew how to make carved "turrets" of a sort which could be charged with an elemental spell, the elven mages Anfalen Elyra and Alanis Aragella are able to take it a step further with the aid of Fern, the Lupin shaman: carvings which can be partly buried into the ground and, if stepped on or near, will detonate in a burst of elemental force! We bury them around the common pathways through the forest, warning our lupin allies, and place them strategically around our walls.

We do not wait idle, though--oh no. With our defenses set-up, the time has some to send our seniormost partisan soldier, Captain Aaron Owen, to guide loyalists and mercenaries once more into the foes' cursed caverns. We mass forces at Redcap Pass, in the palisade we constructed. We sharpen and enchant their weapons, buff and polish their armour, and say a prayer for them that they might return to their families. At the fore: goblins, our cave-adapted shock troops.

Once more, into the breach!

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>>4135462
Between our forces and the lupins who come to our aid from nearby Red Needle Blanket clan--fewer, it must be noted, than previous expeditions--we have nearly 90 men and women of various races mustered. It is a looseknit fellowship, and at least some must be held in reserve to guard the escape-route to the palisade, and Georgetown itself, but it is nothing to scoff at. However, we know from our spies that aside from their undead berserkers, the redcap elves muster a fighting force at least 200-strong, and we are fighting them on their home turf.

The results are better than perhaps might be expected: Owen's forces do not encounter the full force of a redcap army, but rather find their familiar path riddled with traps and tricks. Our elemental mages are able to freeze out many of these, but the delays and noise this creates serves the secondary purpose of sounding the alarm for the redcaps. With mechanically-advanced crossbows, blood magic, and cave-bred fungal poisons they chip away at our force,s but we have studied the arcane arts of healing to such a degree that this hardly does more than slow us!

However, perhaps slowing us is all they needed to do. We lose four goblins, a human, and an elf to an ambush in the great caverns which connect to their rail system, and several lupins besides. They unleash a half-dozen on the berserkers we so feared in this skirmish, doing much of the fatal damage and scoring dozens of combatant-disabling injuries besides. From the cavern walls rain down more bolts and arrows, and they cut off our escape with spider-bombs, so that our forces must fight their way out. They emerge exhausted and harried, like the fox before the hunters' dogs.

Their fate is mild, however, compared to what Georgetown proper faces. Our spies bore witness to a ritual, but not the preparations which must surely have gone on deeper into the caverns, for from the mountains bursts a terrible machine: a roaring, spiraling drill-borer which bursts forth from the harpy foothills, smashing trees and scattering lupins, to barrel towards our principal settlement. Our mines rock it, slowing its approach, but three more of two more of these wicked machines travel the same, newly-cleared pathway to breach our warded, bark-armoured city walls. Watch-trees are no match for their strange metal plating, and even the elements are only able to disable them with great effort. Eventually, they succed in their invasion... And from the hatches which open pour the berserkers and redcaps.

It is a credit to our mages, and to our garrisoned militiamen and partisans, that they are able to protect the city. With Prince George himself leading the defence, they fight fiercely against the bombs and barbarous undead the redcaps unleash on our families...

But over a dozen civilians, children, and brave warriors perish before the redcaps flee, taking two of their three subterranean vehicles with them, and leaving ruin and terror in their wake.

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>>4135489
>>4135462

Month 11 of Year 3: Cold, but no snow. The blood freezes over all about our settlement, and the icy atmosphere seeps in through blasted-open walls throughout Georgetown.

A. We've suffered a grave loss: almost 20 soldiers lost, women and children massacred and eaten by undead abominations in their homes, and our Red Needle Blanket allies scattered and hunted. What is our next move?
A1. Focus solely on defence; rebuild, defend Georgetown, and ready for the next attack
A2. Attempt to rally Red Needle Blanket, and to recruit from Thick Fog Lingering in the north, to add more lupins to our workforce and militia
A3. Attempt to negotiate a peace, or at least a ceasefire (how?)
A4. Call upon The Mysterious Stranger with blood magic, for insight or an edge
A5. Begin readying to evacuate Georgetown to travel to one of our other settlements
A6. Other/a combination (write-in)

B. Our Redcap prisoners fled with their allies, for the most part, but a select few remained, led by a man named Telkeg, a merchant as well as a soldier. He laments the actions of his people, for while they ARE his people, the carnage they have wrought to people who were kind to him (allegedly) fills him with sorrow. He places himself and his men at our mercy, and offers his aid.
B1. Coward, traitor, and filthy redcap that he is, he must be executed! So too for his fellows.
B2. Demand any intelligence they can provide, and the location of their former home, as a show of loyalty
B3. Accept his aid graciously, as we need all the defenders we can get
B4. Offer them freedom from captivity, if they leave Georgetown
B5. Other (write-in)

C. From the North, Captain Margot Hussein sends her gravest sympathies and sorrows. She asks if we require her and her forces to return, or if there is anything else she can do to aid? She notes that, per her existing mission, her scouts have spotted signs of the larger, manned vessels of the Northmen, and she is loaded with alcohol, food, trade goods, and minor magic items.
C1. Abandon the trade mission for now; we need all forces ready at home
C2. Hold the settlement and delay the trade mission; their harbour could provide a good evacuation point in a pinch, and it must be secured and made self-sufficient
C3. Commence with the trade delegation ASAP; we need those charms and items to survive this conflict!
C4. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we direct our people to focus their efforts this month? Pick four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Carouse to raise morale
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. Other (write in)

>>4135498
>A2. Attempt to rally Red Needle Blanket, and to recruit from Thick Fog Lingering in the north, to add more lupins to our workforce and militia

B3. Accept his aid graciously, as we need all the defenders we can get

C2. Hold the settlement and delay the trade mission; their harbour could provide a good evacuation point in a pinch, and it must be secured and made self-sufficient

No preference on D

wow we are in the shit now

>>4135498
We need to take some drastic steps.
A1/2: Bring the lupins into Georgetown for mutual safety
B2
C2
D8/9: Study the dead berserkers and the tank for clues on how to match or beat them

Awaiting a tie-breaker!

In the meantime, a few more notes and reminders on the story thus far for newcomers. Specifically, a recap on relevant characters:

Prince George: Our ruler, and the man we all chose to follow into civil war and banishment. A young man skilled in warfare and the way of the blade, he has matured somewhat in the last couple years, but has a pronounced love of adventure, a hedonistic streak, and a noble heart.

Princess Josephine: A nobleborn merchant and the daughter of long-time supporter and family friend. A bit superficial, but savvy and politically astute, she was deemed a good choice for a princess. The premature birth of her firstborn son as a monster broke her mind a little, but she's getting better.

The Husseins: Three (formerly four) naval sisters, whose father was the admiral of Amica's far mightier fleet once upon a time. Pippa Hussein, the eldest, is our admiral now, and has a title. Margot has taken a position of importance as an explorer and settler in our northern settlement, while youngest sister Sia and Pippa's son Aleksander are decorated heroes of our past battles.

Royal Mage Zane Watson: Tutor at our mages' college and close friend of Prince George, this cautious man serves as one of our chiefmost magical advisor, though our disregard for our concerns about blood magic distanced him somewhat from the council.

Archmage Virmoira: Our seniormost mage, and the most respected in her field, she is a long-lived elven matron skilled in divination, and open to exploration of even the darker arts… When requested.

Governor and Governess Riley: The Governess was once our senior diplomat, but after being kidnapped and pressed into sex-slavery (and religiously-motivated mining labour) by the ape-lord of Monkey Island, she rediscovered religion and grew hardened. Shrewd and private, she secured a position of authority on Victory island, an outpost which ahs since become our principal source of iron and jade, and a haven for our most traditional and religious humans. Her infant son is, we strongly suspect, half-apeman.

“Iron Lord” al-Khalaf: A skilled soldier, smith, and engineer hired on as a mercenary, al-Khalaf manoeuvred his knowledge of steel into citizenship, a title, and mining rights to the redcaps’ mountains… If only we can secure them.

Captain Aaron Owen: Our seniormost army official, and a loyal, long-serving partisan of great distinction. Prefers to lead from the front, and rarely questions orders.

>>4137374

Lord Wysard: A young goblin mage (our only such being), and a skilled elementalist and enchanter. He has been instrumental in our dungeon raids, and the development of our magical and mundane explosives, and has earned himself a rare title among his race.

Krazir: The Prince’s goblin lover, a (former?) prostitute. After accompanying the Prince on a mission and earning his interest, he began to teach her the way of the sword, at first seemingly just for the double entendres and the excuse to spend time alone. Since then, she became proper soldier and even a hero on Monkey Island, but she has lately been kept close to home in Georgetown, taking care of the Prince’s blood magic-cursed monster children: Girgol (Krazir’s daughter) and Gargir (Josephine’s son, who we have passed off as Krazir’s child to remove the beastly-looking boy from the line of succession).

Arthur Bruneau: The de facto spokesperson for the faction of our people most concerned with humanity and traditional religion’s place in our growing society.

Healer Oatbluff: A half-elf mage and our most accomplished healer, she is young but exceptionally skilled, and she made her name treating blood magic ailments and war wounds in these last few months, as well as helping to earn lupin aid in our conflict.

Fern: A member of the lupin clan Red Needle Blanket, a shaman, and a close friend of Oatbluff. She helped teach our people warding magic, and has been a consistent ally among her flightier people.

The Mysterious Stranger: A red-haired, black-eyed half-elven stranger wearing all black, who appears when we dabble in blood magic and has also been spotted aiding the redcaps. Our mages are pretty sure he is a dark spirit of some sort. Since we used blood magic to increase human fertility in Georgetown, many pairs of twins have been born resembling him. We haven’t summoned or spoken to him since our heir was cursed by blood magic.

>>4135498

A. We've suffered a grave loss: almost 20 soldiers lost, women and children massacred and eaten by undead abominations in their homes, and our Red Needle Blanket allies scattered and hunted. What is our next move?
>A2. Attempt to rally Red Needle Blanket, and to recruit from Thick Fog Lingering in the north, to add more lupins to our workforce and militia


B. Our Redcap prisoners fled with their allies, for the most part, but a select few remained, led by a man named Telkeg, a merchant as well as a soldier. He laments the actions of his people, for while they ARE his people, the carnage they have wrought to people who were kind to him (allegedly) fills him with sorrow. He places himself and his men at our mercy, and offers his aid.
>B3. Accept his aid graciously, as we need all the defenders we can get

C. From the North, Captain Margot Hussein sends her gravest sympathies and sorrows. She asks if we require her and her forces to return, or if there is anything else she can do to aid? She notes that, per her existing mission, her scouts have spotted signs of the larger, manned vessels of the Northmen, and she is loaded with alcohol, food, trade goods, and minor magic items.
C2. Hold the settlement and delay the trade mission; their harbour could provide a good evacuation point in a pinch, and it must be secured and made self-sufficient

D. How else shall we direct our people to focus their efforts this month? Pick four, or double down on two:
>D8/9: Study the dead berserkers and the tank for clues on how to match or beat them

>>4135498
So, apparently the Redcaps have "drill-borers" which sound like a mix between a Da Vinci tank and a mini version of that drill from the Avatar cartoon. Fucking hell, we're all dead

>A4. Call upon The Mysterious Stranger with blood magic, for insight or an edge

>B2. Demand any intelligence they can provide, and the location of their former home, as a show of loyalty

>C3. Commence with the trade delegation ASAP; we need those charms and items to survive this conflict!

>D10. Other
One of those metal machines lies in ruin at Georgetown right, so let's tear it apart and reinforce our defenses with the metal from it. If I read things right, our walls are only wood reinforced with magic bark. Some metal might provide more resistance
>D9. Study or advance technology
Study the ruined machines
>D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
Study ways to make the mines more effective against the machines using what we observed in the battle
>D5. Carouse to raise morale
I see our morale is dropping. Let's raise our spirits and give people something to take their minds off of the bloody conflict

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>>4135501
>>4136530
>>4137557
>>4137598
By and large, consensus among the council seems to be that the time has come to hew close with our natural allies in the Lupins of Red Needle Blanket, and to recruit allies once more from our trading partners in Thick Fog Lingering. We send word to both, but in the first month, only Red Needle Blanket's clan seem eager to move into our damaged and besieged settlement to shelter in place... But then, they have little choice in the matter, with redcaps trapping them like the animals they resemble. 33 reddish-brown lupins filter into Georgetown in small family bands; among them are five warriors, a dozen hunters, Fern, and old diplomat named Wiseherb, capable of full telepathic communication with our people in a way that most of his kin struggle with.; also among these are 14 of their children, wee pups who rarely even stand on their hind legs.

Our message to Captain Margot Hussein to request the aid of Thick Fog Lingering also includes instruction to delay her trade mission for the time being, and to fortify the Northern Settlement into a proper rally point in the event of an evacuation of Georgetown. She sends back a message conveying her acknowledgement, and declares that it shall be done. She wonders what we will call this outpost, now that it is to be a more permanent colony... And also wonders what she should tell the traditional Amican Polytheists, if anything, about the status of their faith in this place.

We accept the allegiance of Telkeg the Redcap at afce value )for now at elast), and allow him and his people to mingle more freely with our own folk…. On the condition that he tells us what he knows. He agrees, for the most part. We learn more of his faith, 'bloodworship' (he calls it 'dark communion', but this more literal translation doesn't seem to stick), and of their military magic and technologies, as well as social structures. Redcap society is dominated by the men, who are warriors, leaders, and mining oeprators; women are workers, housewives, or fungus farmers and animal-keepers. They have advanced forging capabilities, bolstered by that silvery metal which we saw veins of down below; the alloy it produces is lightweight, durable, and second to none that they know of. They have produced engines which run on the burning of oil, which they use to convey railcars, these drill-borers which attacked us, and a variety of manufacturing machinery. In magic, they are less diverse and less skilled than we are, hwoever: they have command only of blood magic, alchemical principles, and rudimentary geomancy and healing; virtually all their spellcraft seems to originate or rely on negotiations with the 'dark servants' of blood magic, which he knows little of. He seems hesitant only to tell us only about the lcoation of his home; he fears for our retribution, and what may happen to his family and his property.

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>>4138899
We invest much of our time and energy this month into the study of our hated foes' capabilities: specifically, the bodies of the undead 'berserkers' they unleashed upon us, and the 'drill-borer' by which they conveyed their forces. Though he lacks precise kowledge of the mechanisms, Telkeg's practical experience around the tools and traditions of his people proves helpful. Our efforts are further aided somehwat by the coming-of age of several mages (especially elven Enchanter Ailmon Yinmenor and the half-elf Fortifier Qiqwyn Lunablossom) and a gobliness (Thekuh) who prooves a capable engineer! They join al-Khalaf and Wysard's team of experts in examining the ruined drill-borer for possible sues (and weaknesses that we can exploit against the others), while blood mages and healers under the auspices of Archmage Virmoira and Royal Mage Watson look over the mutated corpses of our former soldiers.
The first team takes great interest in the hull of teh drill-borer (clearly a specialzied steel, with a drill tipped in that rare, silvery metal), and believes that by constructing mines which funnel a charge of ice and then a very specifically-cocnentrated blast of fire, they can better punch a hole into the interior of other borers (though they hasten to clarify that it will require field-testing). the iron Lord also notes, as nonchalantlya s he can manage, taht if we could secure a vein of this metal, he could use it to craft armour plating to protect against the borersl; al-Khalaf makes it clear he considers this a priority for not just his personal wealth, but our survival.

The second team, focusing on the berserkers, discovers the reasons for their incredible efefctiveness: aside from sheer size and strength, and an ability to fight without feeling pain, fear, or remorse, they can only be slain or disabled by thorough dismemberment, complete exanguination, or severe damage to the heart. All else is inconvenience to these once-living flesh-automatons, many wearing the twisted faces of loved ones and friends which our people flinch to strike against.

We end Year 3 with our forces bolstered by several young soldiers from among our humans and goblins, our farmers' numbers renewed by the same means, and with our food stores boosted. Snow has begun to settle, and winds to stir, though, and our walls and homes are still partly open to these elements. Between this, our reliance on child labour, demographic changes (especially frictions involving the redcaps and lupins), and the continuing threat of destruction, morale has ebbed to an all-time low-point. Something has got to give.

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>>4138902
A. In addition to the influx of "woodworshipping" lupins, and Oatbluff and a few other half-elves who have taken up this same native faith, we now have the redcap loyalists and their open practice of Bloodworship. Most startling of all, a young gobliness named Thranons has declared herself a 'priestess' of this faith, evangelizing in Georgetown Square on the need to seek salvation through mastery of blood magic and pacts with the 'dark servants of life' such as The Mysterious Stranger! Can we let this stand?
A1. No! Declare bloodworship heresy, and arrest Thranons for treason (specify what should be done with the redcap loyalists)
A2. No, and furthermore all alien faiths should be banned or restricted, including woodworship
A3. No, these faiths may be practiced by their own people, but evangelizing in Georgetown is to be prohibited
A4. Yes, our people are free, and so too are their souls
A5. Other (write-in)

B. Captain Margot Hussein is seeking clarification as to the status of the Northern Settlement, and a proper name. Propose a name with your vote, and choose an option for addressing the concerns of the traditionalists we encouraged to move there:
B1. Guarantee the traditionalists that Amican Polytheism will receive the same privileges and protections in the North as it does on Victory island
B2. Make it clear that the North is to have the same policy of official secularism as Georgetown
B3. Declare humanity and human culture officially the preferred demographic of the North
B4. Encourage any concerned persons to move to Victory Island
B5. Tell Margot to say nothing except the usual platitudes; this matter is not yet urgent
B6. Other (write-in)

C. Of course, there is the matter of the redcaps. We have not been struck again since last month, but the bloody-minded little elves have taken to wearing the skins of slain lupin warriors who helped us, and to rounding up their families for some dark purpose...
C1. Fortify Georgetown and prepare for the next invasion
C2. Deploy our forces through the woods, to protect the lupins and our trade routes
C3. Invade the redcaps again, to keep them off-balance; they lost forces and resources, too, after all
C4. Prepare to evacuate Georgetown, lest they strike again and we are unable to repel them
C5. Attempt to open diplomatic talks
C6. Other (write-in)

D. And what of our people? How shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. Other (write in)

>>4138916
>A1. No! Declare bloodworship heresy, and arrest Thranons for treason (specify what should be done with the redcap loyalists)

B2. Make it clear that the North is to have the same policy of official secularism as Georgetown

C2. Deploy our forces through the woods, to protect the lupins and our trade routes


No prefence on D

we are in the shit now boys

>A3. No, these faiths may be practiced by their own people, but evangelizing in Georgetown is to be prohibited

>B5. Tell Margot to say nothing except the usual platitudes; this matter is not yet urgent
Name it Tiddieberg

>C5. Attempt to open diplomatic talks

>D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (revelry)

>>4138916
>A3. No, these faiths may be practiced by their own people, but evangelizing in Georgetown is to be prohibited

>B2. Make it clear that the North is to have the same policy of official secularism as Georgetown

>C2. Deploy our forces through the woods, to protect the lupins and our trade routes

>D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)

Blood Magic. Know thy enemy.

>D4. Farm

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>>4138926
>>4139106
>>4139134

We open Year 4 with a declaration: no foreign faiths shall be preached in Georgetown, nor shall missionaries be allowed to do their religious work within city limits. We consider it essentially to the preservation of cultural unity, and the traditional set and true believers in Reformism thank us, as to those with a wariness of blood magic... But Healer Oakbluff clearly resents her more naturalistic, pantheist nature-worship being lumped in with a blood magic-based religion, while Thranons rails against it as an affront to the secularism and freedom promised by Prince George to his people. The guards chase her off her soapbox before many seem to be swayed to her cause. If the lupins or loyalist redcaps resent the restriction, they remain silent about it; their position in our society is precarious, after all.

Our message to Margot Hussein that she should affirm our official policy of secularism in the North does a little to help mend the damage between the crown and the irreligious and spiritually flexible, even as it tempers the approval of the Polytheists. A revel, replete in the customary Georgetown party favours of alcohol and whores, helps smooth things over further, though the lupins (who do not drink and seem uninterested in our prostitution industry) are clearly off-put. One imagines it is during these morale-raising festivities that one enterprising council-member pitches the name "Tiddieberg' for the northerly outpost, now a mostly-self sufficient colony in its own right (if one counts trade with the local lupins).

When morale has been stoked and spirits raised, we set our soldiers to patrol the woods and to defend and rescue our loyal lupin allies. We fend off several redcap 'hunting parties' to rescue 18 lupins, losing only three of our existing warriors--another lupin, and two goblins--in the process. Six of these rescued lupins are soldiers, further bolstering our military once they are fed and healed, and the rest of skilled hunters who can continue to keep our supply lines fed through the winter. Red Needle Blanket proves especially adept at digging out clams and hibernating gill-lizards from the marshes, a trick they teach our own hunters.

We continue to research blood magic even as we condemn bloodworship in public, and our scholars and mages discover a useful (albeit purely theoretical) trick: they can inject the blood taken from a berserker to turn a captive gamebird or pigrat into a raging, fearless, tireless savage for up to an hour. This could prove useful as a means to bolster our soldiers in an emergency, if we could work on the spell further to allow them to direct their fury, or it could be used upon the redcaps in some capacity to turn their own forces against them! It would mean indulging in blood magic more seriously again, though...

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>>4139508
A. What shall we do with this new blood magic knowledge?
A1. Use it to strengthen our troops, and prepare a raid
A2. Use it against the redcap patrols, to turn our foes against themselves
A3. Use it to turn the harpies and animals around the mountain mad, to disrupt the redcaps
A4. Hold it in reserve for now; blood magic should not be used unless absolutely necessary
A5. Other (write-in)

B. Captain Margot Hussein replies to our letter, updating us on (sigh) Tiddieberg: the settlement is well in-hand despite some unpleasant words with Bruneau of the traditionalists; Thick Fog Lingering is prepared to send us 18 soldiers in exchange for warding amulets and steel weapons; and the northern lights have returned over land and sea. What will we have them do?
B1. Bring us a military force from the north to further strengthen our Georgetown garrison
B2. Seek out the northmen first, to secure us magic items for the next stage of the conflict
B3. Hold steady in Tiddieberg, to prepare for our arrival if we are forced to evacuate
B4. Other (write-in)

C. With our food reserves bolstered and morale still low, our people wonder if we might end our policy of crown-mandated child farm-labour. What say the council?
C1. No, we still need their efforts to secure our food supply should the redcaps attack again
C2. Yes, return the children to their studies, home chores, and childhood whimsies
C3. End child labour on the farms, but direct it elsewhere (where?)


D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War on the redcaps (Redcap Pass, Harpy Hills, or the woods?)
D11. Prepare an evacuation (to where?)
D12. Other (write in)

>>4139528
A. What shall we do with this new blood magic knowledge?
>A4. Hold it in reserve for now; blood magic should not be used unless absolutely necessary

B. Captain Margot Hussein replies to our letter, updating us on (sigh) Tiddieberg: the settlement is well in-hand despite some unpleasant words with Bruneau of the traditionalists; Thick Fog Lingering is prepared to send us 18 soldiers in exchange for warding amulets and steel weapons; and the northern lights have returned over land and sea. What will we have them do?
>B3. Hold steady in Tiddieberg, to prepare for our arrival if we are forced to evacuate


C. With our food reserves bolstered and morale still low, our people wonder if we might end our policy of crown-mandated child farm-labour. What say the council?
>C2. Yes, return the children to their studies, home chores, and childhood whimsies


D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
>D5. Attempt to raise morale with a grand speech
>D6. Scry for the location of any redcaps/berserkers outside the mines with the Teardrop
>D8. Study warding magic
>D9. Study the remains of the redcap warmachine

>>4139528
>A1. Use it to strengthen our troops, and prepare a raid

A test run is certainly called for yes? I don't approve of using it willy nilly but we need to.make sure it actually works.

>B2. Seek out the northmen first, to secure us magic items for the next stage of the conflict

>C3. End child labour on the farms, but direct it elsewhere (where?)

Have them help bolster our defenses. You know, stakes, barriers etc. Hard work builds character and we are at war.

>D6. Scry for the location of any redcaps/berserkers outside the mines with the Teardrop
>D9. Study the remains of the redcap warmachine

>>4139528
>A2. Use it against the redcap patrols, to turn our foes against themselves

>B2. Seek out the northmen first, to secure us magic items for the next stage of the conflict
Tell her if she can get some good shit, she can rename the colony after herself (unless she likes Tiddieburg)

>C2. Yes, return the children to their studies, home chores, and childhood whimsies

>D8. Study or use magic
Focus on mining the hell out of the area, especially approaches to Georgetown
>D9. Study or advance technology
Continue studying the ruined machine

As a side thing, can we get a status update on Victory Island and Josephine?

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>>4139652
>>4139586
>>4139559

With misgivings about blood magic so prevalent in our society and among our own council, we decide to restrict any uses of our new knowledge to attacks against our foes, rather than the augmentation of our own forces. We also decide against a direct raid, opting to focus our efforts on intelligence-gathering and the set-up of mines and wards around Georgetown. The palisade at Recap Pass remains effectively abandoned to us but, outside of our woodland patrols, we have no encounters with redcap patrols. We suffer a dozen injuries among our troops, but thanks to our skilled healers and medics, we only suffer three fatalities; the redcaps, reportedly, fare worse, and explosions heard at night attest to still more enemies lost out amongst our traps, though we never find any bodies when resetting them. Archmage Virmoira's scrying, instrumental in wisely setting mines and planning patrols, also shows us that this is deliberate: the redcap survivors retrieve the bodies of the dead, fragmentary or otherwise.

We set Captain Margot Hussein and the people of Tiddieberg to their primary mission once more: contact the Northmen. She obliges, taking many sailors with her and leaving a garrison of lupin mercenaries on non-seafaring civilians to guard Tiddieberg in her absence as she sails once more up the coast to meet those white-bearded folk in their silver ships. We promise her rewards (of a nature to be determined) if she returns loaded with useful items.

We end our policy of child labour, to great relief on the part of Georgetown's parents. Morale improves! There are rumblings among the human population, though, as goblin breeding once more outpaces that of their people, and lupin pups and half-elven children, and the migration of traditionalist to other settlements, further amplify their concerns. Humans now make up a little over 4/10 of the population, where once they formed a distinct majority. Still, there are no attacks this month, weather improves slightly, our homes are warm and secure once more, and food reserves remain steady.

We continue to study the war-machine of the redcap invaders, but a frustrated al-Khalaf and Thekuh report that without higher grade metal or a functional engine, they have reached a roadblock in replicating or countering this advanced technology.

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>>4139910
We inquire with Prince George after his Princess Josephine's well-being, and after the status of Victory Island as a whole. He tells us that the two letters they have exchanged have found her to be in good-health (seemingly mentally as well as physically), and that their child seems to be developing at a normal rate as well (much to his relief). However, Victory Island is something of a mixed bag: it is an industrious place, but one where the abundance of what are effectively ape-man slaves puts her ill at-ease, as does the strict local religious culture. She notes that some industrious young farmers have begun growing both food to support the settlement better on its own, and contraceptive herbs for export; indeed, the ship that brings her letter brings some of the paste we use to prevent pregnancies and the spread of disease, in nice jade pots. Lastly, she fears that she and her attendant healer are not well-liked, for he healer is a blood mage and, since their arrival, more human 'blood children' are being born in the settlement...


A. Prince George also approaches the council with a concern about the other woman in his life: Krazir the goblin. She and his children, who so resemble the berserkers, have increasingly been a target of harassment in the streets since the attack; with demographics again shifting towards goblins and non-humans in general, goblins in general have apparently been suffering a lesser version of the same bullying behaviour from certain humans. The Prince, understandably, is especially concerned for his children and their mother, and wishes to put a stop to this. The question is: how?
A1. Do nothing but reassure our liege; this is a petty concern for the rabble to sort through. Morale is up in all quarters!
A2. Place some of our soldiers to patrol the goblin part of town and to protect Krazir
A3. Suggest Krazir and her children move to one of our other settlements (which one?) for their safety
A4. Allow the Prince to give a speech condemning racial animus and harassment in Georgetown, and crack down on it
A5. Offer concessions to the humans to alleviate the hostilities (such as...?)
A6. Other (write-in)

[...]

>>4139924
B. Captain Margot Hussein's trading delegation has successfully contacted the northmen once more, flagging down a ship! She found them to be passingly interested in our magic trinkets and especially in the fire-enchanted sword she showed them; they request more of these. She inquired after their magical items, especially those related to protection and healing, and they are prepared to trade for amulets which offer a protective field of force to the wearer the more one adorns oneself with. They also offer up non-magical but astonishingly well-crafted and sharp swords of silvery metal (perhaps the same metal the redcaps' mountain contains?). She notes that they ALSO have a particular fondness for our potato vodka, though they grew somewhat surly and standoffish when too drunk (and that, on this drink in particular, they grew drunk very quickly). What shall we do with this information?
B1. Send Sia Hussein back to her sister loaded with magic weapons to trade for amulets and otehr defensive items (requires that we devote at least two of our 'D' actions this month to forging and enchanting such weapons
B2. Send furs, alcohol, and blue-grey jade to trade for 'silversteel' weapons
B3. Seek other trades (healing magic, ship technology, heating oil, glassworks, or otehr?)
B4. End trade for now
B5. Pursue diplomatic or military alliance
B6. Other (write-in)

C. The relative peacefulness of the month is broken by a bout of extreme sickness--vomiting, fevers, bloody diarrhea) among some of our population. Investigation by our healers, blood mages, and chloromancers traces the sickness back to food supply: a blood magic curse has been inflicted upon our fields with the ritually-scattered blood and body parts of the redcaps our forces and mines slew. AN entrie crop may be contaminated, and our workforce is hobbled and may suffer fatalities. What action should we take?
C1. Burn the fields just to be safe, check our existing stores for further contaminant, and attempt to begin anew in the same rich soil
C2. Attempt to reverse the cursing of our fields (chloromancy? blood magic? both?)
C3. Attempt diplomacy with the Redcaps, and to get them to reverse it in exchange for some concession (what?)
C4. Abandon those fields (requires that we rely on otehr food-producing professions, or scout for good land elsewhere with a 'D' action)
C5. Other (write-in)

D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4139946
A. Prince George also approaches the council with a concern about the other woman in his life: Krazir the goblin. She and his children, who so resemble the berserkers, have increasingly been a target of harassment in the streets since the attack; with demographics again shifting towards goblins and non-humans in general, goblins in general have apparently been suffering a lesser version of the same bullying behaviour from certain humans. The Prince, understandably, is especially concerned for his children and their mother, and wishes to put a stop to this. The question is: how?
>A5. Offer concessions to the humans to alleviate the hostilities, give the more successful human mercenaries citizenship and allow promising human children to enroll into the mage school


B. Captain Margot Hussein's trading delegation has successfully contacted the northmen once more, flagging down a ship! She found them to be passingly interested in our magic trinkets and especially in the fire-enchanted sword she showed them; they request more of these. She inquired after their magical items, especially those related to protection and healing, and they are prepared to trade for amulets which offer a protective field of force to the wearer the more one adorns oneself with. They also offer up non-magical but astonishingly well-crafted and sharp swords of silvery metal (perhaps the same metal the redcaps' mountain contains?). She notes that they ALSO have a particular fondness for our potato vodka, though they grew somewhat surly and standoffish when too drunk (and that, on this drink in particular, they grew drunk very quickly). What shall we do with this information?
>B1. Send Sia Hussein back to her sister loaded with magic weapons to trade for amulets and other defensive items (requires that we devote at least two of our 'D' actions this month to forging and enchanting such weapons


C. The relative peacefulness of the month is broken by a bout of extreme sickness--vomiting, fevers, bloody diarrhea) among some of our population. Investigation by our healers, blood mages, and chloromancers traces the sickness back to food supply: a blood magic curse has been inflicted upon our fields with the ritually-scattered blood and body parts of the redcaps our forces and mines slew. AN entire crop may be contaminated, and our workforce is hobbled and may suffer fatalities. What action should we take?

C3. Attempt diplomacy with the Redcaps, and to get them to reverse it in exchange for some concession (what?)
>C4. Abandon those fields (requires that we rely on other food-producing professions, or scout for good land elsewhere with a 'D' action)


D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
>D1. Scout inland
>D8. Study earth Elemental magic
>D11. Forge weapons and enchant them

Mmm, riddle me this, why is this world's Britain named "unified states of amican" if our goal is to basically become this world's America? Can you please ret-con this small blunder, it really bothers me. Hell, why is a kingdom even called "unified states" it makes no sense? Just change the kingdom we were abandoned from to something like brontonia or some shit.

>>4139910
>A5. Offer concessions to the humans to alleviate the hostilities, give the more successful human mercenaries citizenship and allow promising human children to enroll into the mage school
---
>B2. Send furs, alcohol, and blue-grey jade to trade for 'silversteel' weapons
---
>C2. Attempt to reverse the cursing of our fields (chloromancy? blood magic? both?)

Use both. That should be a winning
combo.
--
>D1. Scout (where?)
Inland
---
>D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)

Study Blood Magic. We need to be able to nullify the Redcaps advantage. We should get our captive ones to assist.

>>4140188
Much like Tiddieberg, this was a name chosen by the voters, and not necessarily a name I would choose myself. I used my one veto to not name the prince "George Washington," though, and I'm not comforable with the idea of overriding voter decisions just because. Sort of defeats the purpose of these threads.

As for why a kingdom might be called "The Unified States," consider the possibility that it is NOT just Fantasy Britain, but instead a number of princely states unified under a single great king, which is why it is home to humans with British, French, Persian, Arab, andbother surnames, plus at least one variety of elf and the goblins.

>>4139924
>A2. Place some of our soldiers to patrol the goblin part of town and to protect Krazir

>B1. Send Sia Hussein back to her sister loaded with magic weapons to trade for amulets and other defensive items

>C1. Burn the fields just to be safe, check our existing stores for further contaminant, and attempt to begin anew in the same rich soil
We have large stores of food. We can take a temporary hit to ensure we kill the problem

>D11. Forge weapons
>D12. Enchant said weapons
Go all in on the trade. Any surplus can be given to our soldiers and kept in arsenal

>>4140188
The initial vote was to decide our starting region and the name of our leader, the prince (rightful king) of said region. The only guy who made a vote before OP chose to continue voted for George Washington, rightful King of the United States of America. That was insane, so OP had to try and adjust things to make it at least sort of work. Also, our goal isn't to become America. Our goal is to eventually retake our homeland and have Prince George take the throne back on the mainland. If you're familiar with Song of Ice and Fire, it'd be kind of like if the Blackfyres and Golden Company found a new continent and set up shop there instead of being mercenaries.

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>>4140013
>>4140236
>>4140244

Unable to successfully restore the field through magic, we slash and burn it to afford further bad juju. Our healers and medics tend to our afflicted citizens, speeding their recovery and preventing any loss of life, while our blood mages check over our existing supplies for contamination. In the end, about half of our last harvest proves unusably infested with blood magic and toxins, and must be destroyed. Fearful of the impact on our food production, we send our forces inland to seek out somewhere else to plant our food until such time as the curse wears off or is undone.

In an effort to calm racial hostilities in Georgetown, we promise the humans preferential enrollment in our mage's college moving forward, and we grant the human mercenaries (but not the goblin or elven ones) expedited citizenship contingent with services rendered or future successes. Our lowered credentials result in a wave of applications, a surge in citizenship, and a favourable response... But not so much among the elves and half-elves, who feel slighted. The goblins, lacking much magical potential, seem satisfied with the arrangement for now.

With this fire put out (or at least tamped down for now), we set our smiths to forging weapons and our mages to enchanting what they produce. With only seven smiths in our contingent, it is slow going, but with the help of the unskilled laborers and the sue of a great deal of our steel and iron, we are able to produce almost 100 enchanted blades of varying quality in time for Sia to take these weapons back to Margot in Tiddieberg! We hope it will be good enough to net us some defensive enchantments.

Our food stores hold up over the third month of Year 4, but even if our fields WEREN'T cursed and burnt, our farmers can only do so much as the blizzards return with a vengeance. The only question is: will the redcaps return in the same foul spirits as Old Man Winter?

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>>4140755

A. Our inland expedition returns, carrying with them a dozen injured and missing three of their fighters--redcaps strike again. They report that the arrows our blood mages tipped in berserker blood had the desired effect, though, and that the redcaps were driven mad and turned to infighting when our hunters used these. They ALSO report that there seems to be a nice field with a creek running through it just southwest of the harpies' hills!
A1. Send our forces out to stake a claim and to begin erecting a fort, to defend against redcaps and ready for spring planting
A2. Send our forces to build and defend a fort, and send chloromancers and elementalists to begin sewing winterwheat immediately
A3. Attempt to negotiate with the redcaps for use of that land (what shall we offer?)
A4. Too risky--hold off, and keep our forces closer to home
A5. Other (write-in)

B. Sia Hussein returns towards the end of the month with a message from Margot attesting to the success of her mission, and a hold containing roughly 80 defensive charms--amulets, bracelets, and more--enchanted to repulse and turn aside weapons. Their effectiveness isn't foolproof, but they are effective enough, and each is constructed of that shining silvery metal. She wears one herself, proof of the Husseins' trust in the enchantments. The letter which accompanies this shipment not only asks what her next move should be, but subtly inquires after her reward... (Select any one or two which do not contradict)
B1. Offer Margot a noble title and formal authority over Tiddieberg; grant her limited trade and military autonomy
B2. Offer Margot a noble title and a cut of all trade through Tiddieberg
B3. Dictate that she continue trade with the northmen through the winter under our auspices (what shall we offer and request?)
B4. Dictate that the trade mission be paused to bring her forces south to aid us against the redcaps
B5. Dictate that she focus on overland trade next

C. We also receive word from Princess Josephine, via Admiral Pippa Hussein's shipment; she wonders when she might return, for she grows increasingly unhappy and feels increasingly unwelcome on Victory Island. What shall we recommend to Prince George?
C1. For her safety, the princess must remain away from Georgetown until the redcap menace is dealt with
C2. Though she should remain put, we will speak with Governor and Governess Riley about the matter, to ensure that she is treated with more respect
C3. Send military forces to establish order in the colony, and to give Princess Josephine a greater sense of safety
C4. Bring our Princess back home to Georgetown
C5. Send our Princess north to Tiddieberg
C6. Other (write-in)

>>4140802
D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4140802
A. Our inland expedition returns, carrying with them a dozen injured and missing three of their fighters--redcaps strike again. They report that the arrows our blood mages tipped in berserker blood had the desired effect, though, and that the redcaps were driven mad and turned to infighting when our hunters used these. They ALSO report that there seems to be a nice field with a creek running through it just southwest of the harpies' hills!

>A2. Send our forces to build and defend a fort, and send chloromancers and elementalists to begin sewing winterwheat immediately


B. Sia Hussein returns towards the end of the month with a message from Margot attesting to the success of her mission, and a hold containing roughly 80 defensive charms--amulets, bracelets, and more--enchanted to repulse and turn aside weapons. Their effectiveness isn't foolproof, but they are effective enough, and each is constructed of that shining silvery metal. She wears one herself, proof of the Husseins' trust in the enchantments. The letter which accompanies this shipment not only asks what her next move should be, but subtly inquires after her reward... (Select any one or two which do not contradict)
>B1. Offer Margot a noble title and formal authority over Tiddieberg; grant her limited trade and military autonomy
>B4. Dictate that the trade mission be paused to bring her forces south to aid us against the redcaps


C. We also receive word from Princess Josephine, via Admiral Pippa Hussein's shipment; she wonders when she might return, for she grows increasingly unhappy and feels increasingly unwelcome on Victory Island. What shall we recommend to Prince George?
>C5. Send our Princess north to Tiddieberg


D. What of our people: how shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
>D3. Forage the marshes
>D8. Study the protective charms

>>4141079
Backing this, but C2. Idgaf D

>>4141079
Support

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>>4141079

We send a letter north to Tiddieberg, granting Margot a promotion and a noble title, as well as a degree of autonomy over her explorers and their settlement; in return, we request the aid of as many of her 29 soldiers as she can spare, and transport and lodging for Princess Josephine.

As for our forces presently on-hand in Georgetown, we have a new mission for them: we send soldiers, hunters, farmers, carpenters, and mages southeast to claim the fertile land and erect protective barricades around them. Our hope is that my heating the ground, setting up magically-aided irrigation, and using chloromancy, we can fast-grow winterwheat enough to meet our food requirements until our other mages and farmers can free our closer fields from the curse of the redcaps.

Many of our citizens are clearly taking the threat of redcap blood magic to their survival very personally, though: Telkeg, the redcap loyalist, is ambushed exiting the brothel with his friends, and is badly beaten to near death. Worse news for the Council, perhaps, is that his fellows (all soldiers, after all) defended themselves by fighting back, and in the process slew warrior and human polytheist Edison Smith. Telkeg still unconscious, they bring him (and Smith's body) before us and lead their case as self-defence. Our spies, investigating the area of two in question, report a mob already forming to exact vengeance.

A ship docks in Georgetown, unloading 25 soldiers (mostly lupin warriors), as month 5 begins to heat up both figuratively and literally. Our study of the protective charms which arrived on the last ship, and which they now bring, is informative: we know these trinkets to be base din a mix of enchantment and warding magic, and perhaps even replicable, though the resonance of the metal they are made from lends them an ease of enchantment and a relative potency which is difficult to match is stone, wood, iron, or even steel.

We may well need such defences in the days to come, it seems...

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>>4142267

A. What shall we do about the Redcap Loyalist, the death of Edison Smith, and the furor building in Georgetown over his death?
A1. Place the redcaps on public trial, and make it a fair one; let our public's justice system decide their fate
A2. Declare Smith's death an act of self-defence, and exonerate the redcaps
A3. Have the redcaps responsible flogged and beaten publicly as punishment, but let them live
A4. Banish the redcaps responsible from Georgetown
A5. Execute the redcaps responsible
A6. Banish all redcaps from Georgetown
A7. Execute all redcaps publicly
A8. Use blood magic to fake Edison Smith's return to life
A9. Other (write-in)

B. Vigilante justice and harassment have notably gone up in our main settlement these last couple months. Should we establish a guard presence?
B1. Yes; assign soldiers to keep the peace
B2. Elect and train civilian guards to keep the peace, reserving our soldiers for the war
B3. No, our people are loyal; they do not need constant watching
B4. No; let our spies keep us up-to-date on the situation, and crack down only if it worsens
B5. Condemn this activity publicly in a royal speech
B6. Celebrate our people's strong sens eof communal justice
B7. Other (write-in)

C. Our mission in the distant southeastern fields is going well, it seems, though redcap skirmishes have inflicted a half-dozen injuries which require urgent medical care by healers and mages, and two deaths (a lupin soldier and a human farmer/brewer). How shall we respond? Choose as many non-contradictory options as you'd like:
C1. Establish a more permanent outpost, with greater defences
C2. Send a healer to tend to injuries more immediately
C3. Attempt diplomacy with the redcaps (what will we propose?)
C4. Send forces to strike at the redcaps and purge them from the area
C5. Abandon the distant field
C6. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

(Please also note: current food reserves sit at 6214, but the marshes are largely depleted for the season by over-harvesting to attain these numbers)

>>4142278
A. I never wanted the redcaps integrated. All I want is them inside their damp caves and never coming out.
A7. Execute all redcaps publicly.

B. Oh, come on...
>B3. No, our people are loyal; they do not need constant watching

C. Our main population is not great, but nothing bad either. I think we can spare enough for yet another permanent encampment.

>C1. Establish a more permanent outpost, with greater defenses
>C2. Send a healer to tend to injuries more immediately

D. Let's leave food alone for a while, at least until our southern settlement is getting better, plus, we need to let the dirt to rest.

>D6. Scry with the waterdrop for anymore redcap movements. Hopefully we can prevent attacks or know them beforehand.
>D8. Doubling down on studying warding. We need better vigils against all this curses maaan.
>D10. Diplomacy! Send a ship to the main country and recruit more human laborers. We will need the extra hands to train into to other professions such as smiths plus, we would tip the demographics back at human supremacy

>>4142278
A. What shall we do about the Redcap Loyalist, the death of Edison Smith, and the furor building in Georgetown over his death?
>A1. Place the redcaps on public trial, and make it a fair one; let our public's justice system decide their fate

B. Vigilante justice and harassment have notably gone up in our main settlement these last couple months. Should we establish a guard presence?
>B4. No; let our spies keep us up-to-date on the situation, and crack down only if it worsens

C. Our mission in the distant southeastern fields is going well, it seems, though redcap skirmishes have inflicted a half-dozen injuries which require urgent medical care by healers and mages, and two deaths (a lupin soldier and a human farmer/brewer). How shall we respond? Choose as many non-contradictory options as you'd like:
>C1. Establish a more permanent outpost, with greater defences
>C2. Send a healer to tend to injuries more immediately
>C4. Send forces to strike at the redcaps and purge them from the area

D. How else shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
>D6. Scry with the waterdrop for anymore redcap movements. Hopefully we can prevent attacks or know them beforehand.
>D8. Doubling down on studying warding. We need better vigils against all this curses maaan.
>D10. Diplomacy! Send a ship to the main country and recruit more human laborers. We will need the extra hands to train into to other professions such as smiths.

>>4142278
>A1. Place the redcaps on public trial, and make it a fair one; let our public's justice system decide their fate

>B2. Elect and train civilian guards to keep the peace, reserving our soldiers for the war

>C1. Establish a more permanent outpost, with greater defences

>D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)

Let's give a Unity speech

>D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)

On Redcap movements

>>4142278
>A1. Place the redcaps on public trial, and make it a fair one; let our public's justice system decide their fate
Let a jury decide their fate. Whatever choice they make, we can defer any complains to the jurors and away from ourselves. Only citizens can be selected, I presume

>B4. No; let our spies keep us up-to-date on the situation, and crack down only if it worsens
Let's put our spies to good use. We need all the soldiers we can get

>C5. Abandon the distant field

>D9. Study or advance technology
Continue studying ways to produce more effective explosives on a larger scale
>D10. Diplomacy! Send a ship to the main country and recruit more human laborers. We will need the extra hands to train into to other professions such as smiths plus, we would tip the demographics back at human supremacy

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>>4143004
>>4142905
>>4142531
>>4142373

Using the teardrop the cry redcap movements aboveground, we plan our next move carefully: the establishment of a permanents (or at least semi-permanent) settlement at the far fields. We assign soldiers and farmers, of course--farmers in particular can do little for us in Georgetown just now--but we also send a healer, chloromancers, an elementalist, and mages skilled in healing blood magic ailments. Sneaking through their patrols, striking at the redcaps only where we are certain of a victory by overwhelming force, we get all our people to their new home safely, including those who bring their families along. All in all, the fort at the far fields quickly comes to rival our other colonies due to its more convenient location and hospitable climate, and those who have moved there are motivated to quickly reinforce it by all available means, leading to a series of tiny castlse of living, enchanted magic wood, serving as homes and barracks for the soldiers and farmers now tending our main hope for a steady future food supply. Already, the winterwheat begins to grow, thanks to our magic and diligent workers. To ensure things continue to move smoothly and in line with expectations, we assign our long-time loyal spy James Reid to the settlement as well.

Meanwhile, our other spies--Milana Watson and Arnaud Allard--are walking the streets of Georgetown during the public trial of the Redcap Loyalists, measuring the mood. Guarded by soldiers and increasingly-complex systems of wards, and with the menace of our foes-turned-allies-turned-murders safely out of the streets, our people begin to feel safe. They react with cheers when they learn that our mages have found a means to transfer the enchantments from several small pieces of northman jewelry and focus them within a single such item, or a large surface such as a wall, to amplify the enchantment or extended it over a wider area.

When the trial begins, though, dangerous division begins to creep in: it is clear that those who most loathe the Redcap loyalists and wish to see them dead are the Polytheists and old-guard human purists; elves and half-elves have more sympathy, and goblins seem indifferent or just delighted at the spectacle of a public trial. However, many irreligious folk and Reformists, especially humans with 'blood children' of their own, rankle at the invective surrounding the trial, and the suspicion that drifts towards them. The blood mages we have trained thus far are similarly eyed with mistrust, and Krazir and her children stay home as much as possible this month, not seen on their usual routes by our watchful eyes.

The trial is somewhat farcical and uneven; nobody dares speak up in the Redcap's favour. In the end, Telkeg, and three of his men are sentenced to publicly-administered execution, and all others in their party are to be banished from Georgetown.

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>>4144104

Meanwhile, we begin to muster for a long-haul journey by our Admiral back towards the Unified States, to recruit more human labourers. Many goblins and lupins have left Georgetown for the new colony, so we hope that this will prove a useful way to both bolster our workforce and adjust our dynamics! However, this leaves us with a question of what we have that will be of value in our resource and magic-rich homeland...

Year 4, Month 5, brings rain, relative warmth, and promise for the future, even as more questions are raised.

A. The Redcap Loyalists have been sentenced to public execution and banishment, depending on their proximity to Smith's slaying. Is this acceptable? Many of them know details of our settlement and operations, should they be banished, and we have good reason to believe that the crime was not the random murder the accusers painted it as, thanks to our spies.
A1. Have Prince George declare that all Redcaps must share the sentence of execution (eliminate the threat of leaks)
A2. Have Prince George commute the sentence to banishment for all, but banish them to one of our other colonies to keep them close
A3. Have Prince George pardon the Redcap Loyalists
A4. Let the sentence fall as it has; this is the people's justice, and it is not our place to interfere
A5. Other (write-in)

B. The threat of vigilantism is lowered by the verdict for now--the execution of the Redcaps would provide a means for people to vent fear and frustration. It is exposing some fissures in our society, however, and intervention in the sentence may create greater, unchanneled frustration. What should we do about this?
B1. Nothing, for now; continue to monitor the situation
B2. Have Prince George give a speech on justice, togetherness, and unity
B3. Condemn ill-treatment of blood children, and reassure our people that the crown and council respect all citizens and will protect them regardless of race or the particulars of their birth
B4. Embrace this fervor to purge our society of the taint of blood magic and/or nonhuman culture
B5. Other (write-in)

C. We have declared our intention for a trade mission with our homeland, but what shall we trade? Our mass-produced enchanted weapons have some novelty value, but are crude by the standards of the great markets of the capital, and even by many outlying princely states' standards. The more valuable our trade goods, the more likely we are to acquire truly skilled labour.
C1. Trade mundane food, pelts, feathers, alcohol, and otehr such things
C2. Stick to what's worked: enchanted weapons and armour
C3. Trade some of the jewelry of the northmen (enchanted, or not?)
C4. Trade jade and wood carvings, and other exotic arts and materials
C5. Trade away our remaining gems
C6. Trade ape-man slaves from Victory Island
C7. Postpone the sailing until we can raid Redcap Pass for more gems and metal
C8. Other (write-in)

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>>4144114
D. How else shall they focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

[NOTE: Your choices in D affect how many trade goods you will have to offer, such as production and enchantment, hunting expeditions, or warfare to seize gems]

[ALSO NOTE: I forgot to update morale or food supplies properly on the first post; I've corrected those here.]

>>4144114

>A5. Let the redcaps leave. Ambush them away from prying eyes. Off with their heads

>B3. Those children are free of guilt. Aren't humans better than redcaps? Stop behaving like a flock of scared birds, god.

>C6. Slaves. And this slaves will be a novelty in the mainland. Smart enough to perform tasks but not enough to be considered people (that's what we tell 'em)

>D6. Scry with the teardrop for the red caps' cave bowels to see if they are making a new spell or curse that we could be prepared beforehand.
>D8. Use fortifying and warding magic to carve protective glyph on the ships' hulls and masts and draw the same on the sail.
>D11 (or 10?). Gather hunters, the young Hussein on a ship and establish a hunting party stationed on victory island to abduct apefolk from their country. These will be slaves

>>4144114
>A4. Let the sentence fall as it has; this is the people's justice, and it is not our place to interfere

>B1. Nothing, for now; continue to monitor the situation

>C4. Trade jade and wood carvings, and other exotic arts and materials
>C5. Trade away our remaining gems

>D4. Farm
>D10. War
Organize a raid on Redcap Pass, not only to damage them, but to also gain more gems. Hopefully it'll surprise them since we are generally defensive
>D8. Study or use magic
Continue studying warding
>D7. Train or retrain our citizens
Train a few more spies

>>4144282
>>4145492
Waiting on a tie-breaker or until after work tomorrow--far too tired and tipsy to post now!

>>4144117
A4 but keep them close
B1, and keep the spies working
C3, unenchanted, C4, C5
>>4145492 I support these Ds

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>>4146093
>>4145492
>>4144282

We allow our people to busy themselves with the trial of the Redcap Loyalists, and refrain from involving ourselves or the Prince in the sentencing; it is, after all, the will of the people. To jeers and cheers, four Redcaps--including Telkeg, beaten almost to unrecognizability--are publicly executed by the swords of Edison Smith's fellow soldiers. The two who survive, Binthec and Gittig, hunter and cartographer, are to be banished.

While this is going on, the Council is busy training additional spies, to be our eyes and ears. We neither condemn nor praise the actions of the humans in attacking the redcap loyalists, nor their behaviour towards the families of blood children, but we also recognize that it is important to keep watch over these developments.We train five humans and three goblins--mostly soldiers, save one prostitute--as spies, to monitor the community.

We also must coordinate with our merchants and diplomats to plan our trade mission to The Unified States. There is some talk of instituting a slave trade, but ultimately more conservative voices win out: rather than selling away Victory Island's workforce, or returning to Monkey Island for a raid, we deem it more feasible to trade artwork and gemstones. With so few gemstones, though, it is deemed necessary to attempt another raid on the redcaps' caves!

We send half our forces to the palisade at Redcap Pass, to reinforce the rotating skeleton crew kept there these days. Unfortunately, this clearly draws our foes' attention; when our forces and are massed and ready to attack, they find the cave full of cages which, when remotely opened by soem unknown mechanism, release dozens of undead, blood-magic-tainted, skinned lupin pups. The shock and horror of this affront is enough to scatter our lupin warriors almost instantly, and in the chaos which follows, dozens of our soldiers are routed before they can chip away more than a few armloads of gems. Even protected by wards as they are, and with the attention of our healers and medics, six warriors succumb to their wounds.

Making due with what we have, we begin preparing two of our vessels--the Albatross Heart and one of our smaller starting ships--to make the dangerous journey. We inscribe the hull with warding runes, and enchant the sails to catch favourable winds, load them up with artwork, trade goods, and jewels... But find we only too late that we are spread to thin to send more than one ship. Admiral Pippa Hussein takes the Albatross Heart, which has become her pride and joy, and 16 mages, sailors, fishermen, cartographers, merchants, and other assorted folk---including elven priest Fartoris, who asks to accompany ehr to retrieve some rare tomes--to set sail for our homeland, to recruit human labourers with our loot.

Meanwhile, the weather only gets warmer and wetter as we reach the half-way point of Month 6, and the settlement out among the far fields begins to produce a truly worthy harvest!

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>>4146832
A. The Redcap Loyalists pelad not to be sent home; having seen what the redcaps do too their own people who fail, disappoint, or betray them, we can see why. What shall we do?
A1. Send them away anyway
A2. Offer them refuge in one of our colonies (which one?)
A3. Send them away with the trade delegation to Amica
A4. Execute the ingrates, then!
A5. Offer them leniency in exchange for vital intelligence they have yet denied us
A6. Other (write-in)

B. Our spies report not just on 'citizens' patrols' through Georgetown--an outgrowth of the vigilante spirit taking hold in some quarters, but presently a useful vent for fear and frustration, with naught more than some petty harassment to show--but something stranger and perhaps even more troubling. Thranons, self proclaimed goblin blood-priestess, has ceased her public proselytizations, but the spies report that she has been seen in the company of many humans, parents of blood children largely, who invite her into their homes nightly, and who hand on her every word. Some of these humans have taken to traveling in groups, in order to put off the citizens' patrols, and our spies believe they represent approximately a dozen peopel who all follow the ways of 'bloodworship.' What do we make of this development?
B1. Condemn and crack down on the citizens' patrols, and forbid the harassment of citizens by their fellow civilians
B2. Call out and shame the bloodworshipers, and arrest Thranons
B3. Monitor the situation, but take no further action yet
B4. Embed spies (into which group, or both?)
B5. Other (write-in)

C. Our last attempt to raid the redcaps was a success only in the loosest sense of the word, and we are stretched thin. The palisade may yet fall, and our ability to reliably defend the far fields is potentially suspect against a coordinated assault, assuming the redcaps have the capability at present. Worse yet, our lupin warriors are shaken by the experience of battling their undead children; they may not be willing to enter the caves again. What should we do?
C1. Focus defences on Georgetown
C2. Reinforce the palisade in numbers, and attempt to dominate Redcap Passs once more, to limit enemy movements
C3. Focus defences on the far fields
C4. Spread our soldiers around, patrolling and protecting our setttlements, forts, and trade routes
C5. Attempt another assault on the caves
C6. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4146857
>A5. Offer them leniency in exchange for vital intelligence they have yet denied us
If they don't give it up now, they never will

>B4. Embed spies
Get an agent in the blood worshipers.

>C4. Spread our soldiers around, patrolling and protecting our settlements, forts, and trade routes

>D4. Farm
>D6. Scry
Use scrying to keep our soldiers aware of enemy movements, allowing them to concentrate where needed. Use the teardrop as deemed necessary
>D8. Study or use magic
Plant elemental mines. In the path to Georgetown, make sure to try some of those experimental ice funnel mines specialized to take down drill borers. Fieldtesting
>D9. Study or advance technology
Continue studying explosives and gunpowder

>>4146857
>A5. Offer them leniency in exchange for vital intelligence they have yet denied us

Yeah, they have ta give in now or never.

>B3. Monitor the situation, but take no further action yet.

A religious inspired fight might crack up, but we can stretch our time a little longer

>C3. Focus defences on the far fields.

It's the one of the most profit and far away from the palisade so the redcaps can't pull off that one again.

I like >>4148226's plan for the Ds

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>>4148226
>>4149253
(In the interest of moving along, compromises between B3 and B4, and C3 and C4, will be made)

While the Council's attitude towards the Redcap Loyalists is tepid at best, they HAVE been useful assets in learning how to defend against their former fellows. However, their usefulness is not without limits, we explain, and they have clearly worn out their welcome with out people. We offer them protection... At a price. Ultimately, they concede: in exchange for leniency, and being assigned to the defensive operations under strict supervision, Gittig and Binthec tell us all they can of their people: their fungal farms fed with blood, their undead workers, their low fertility rate (no doubt responsible for slowing their rate of attack despite according to Binthec, a military force equal to the whole of our population). They describe wars of subjugation and population control against trolls, the capture, taming, and alteration of spiders for the fine silk which makes their clothing. They tell us of their fine architecture, of their family structures divided into districts or 'colonies' like ours, but connected by railway networks. Gittig, a cartographer even draws us a map to their little empire, numbering approximately 2400 widely-dispersed elves and captives; he draws a rougher map from memory of their capitol, "Iurnkedal", with the great temple-citadel of their blood priests at the centre and great gates and walls of steel protecting its every entrance from adjoining rail-tunnels.

Meanwhile, outside the council-chambers, our spies continue to watch the streets with their usual subtlety, paying careful attention to the comings and goings of Thranons and those she has visited. Lillie Rogers, our prostitute-spy, reports Thranons paying visits to the whoring district with gifts, and staying in one of the establishments many nights, but not requesting any 'services'; while Goblins generally lack surnames and live in large collective dwellings, it becomes clear she is the daughter of the proprietress of Bliastukt, a gobliness who joined us in Exmuth as a high-class escort, and has since become a noted merchant and artisan in town through her brothel and jade-working studio. She is quite possibly the wealthiest goblin in town.

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>>4149377
We set our soldiers to patrolling our trade routes through the woods, guarding far fields and palisade alike. but with a special emphasis on protecting the fields; our scrying of the enemy redcap movements, and the knowledge of redcap raiding routes provided to us by Gittig and Binthec, allows us to ambush them repeatedly and brutally. It also, however, reveals something sinister afoot: the redcaps are massing, but not to attack our fields or Georgetown. Rather, their divined positions and consultation with Captain Aaron Owen and the remaining Redcap Loyalists suggests that they are planning to attack the last concentration of Red Needle Blanket clan lupins outside of Georgetown... And to destroy their sacred living-wood sculpture, containing their ancestral spirit.

The weather turns hot and begins to dry up in Month 7, but our first great harvest from the far fields comes in; our supplies are still dwindling slightly, but this has more to do with the number of labourers tending the field than its productivity, and our over-harvesting of the marshlands.

While our researches into explosives technology are still stymied by a lack of certain minerals, the use of contrasting heat and cold magic in a single mine provides a means to affect an explosion with fewer resources. However, enchantment is slower going than manufacturing, for not everyone can be a mage, and not all mages can be enchanters; for now, at least, we are able to mine likely redcap points of approach to our settlements and palisade, including anti-armour mines to damage or disable drill-borers.

Our trade and recruitment mission to the old country still has not returned, as it comes time again to convene the council.

>>4149387
A. There is an imminent threat to the Red Needle Blanket idol, a centre of their culture and home to the great spirit of their ancestor. The number of lupins outside our walls is limited, and our patrols typically do not focus there... But is it really of strategic value?
A1. Consult with the lupin 'leaders' Fern and Wiseherb, and do as they advise
A2. Focus our defences on the lupin idol
A3. Tell nobody of this; the lupins will surely be inclined to protect their little magic statue, but is not of importance to our mission, and our forces are thin
A4. Allow our lupin forces leave to defend their territory and their idol, but keep our other forces in reserve (note: 13 of our Georgetown soldiers, and 10 of the soldiers at the far fields, are lupin, though about half are Thick Fog Lingering clan; many of our hunters also are lupins)
A5. Commit our mages to defend the idol, to keep our armed forces from being too thinly spread
A6. Other (write-in)

B. There is another skirmish in the whoring district of Georgetown, between (mostly) Polytheist radicals and someone associated with feared blood magic. This time, however, the Polytheists have picked a fight with a target they really ought not to have: war-hero and beloved mother of Prince George's illegitimate monster-children, Krazir the goblin. She had apparently been visiting with old colleagues from her prostitute days when she and the children were surrounded, and the vigilantes demanded to inspect the cursed children. What resulted was a battle between goblins and humans, prostitutes and soldiers. There were no deaths, and the children are safe, but Krazir is shaken and injured. Only the swift action of our spies, calling other soldiers and council members to the scene, stopped it from spilling over into bloodshed, and all involved have been detained. Prince George is livid, and it is all we can do to prevent him administering executions with his own blade. What shall we do?
B1. Hold a public trial, as before for the Redcap Loyalists
B2. Condemn the harassment and vigilantism publicly
B3. Release all involved, as there were no deaths (embed a spy in the polytheist vigilantes?)
B4. Institute guard patrols in the trouble area (civilian, or military?)
B5. Suggest that Krazir and the children move to one of the other settlements for their own safety (which one?)
B6. Execute the foolish vigilantes who dared to threaten a hero and her children
B7. Publicly acknowledge Krazir's children as George's own, and grant them the status and protection even a bastard royal deserves
B8. Other (write-in)

>>4149427
C. No sooner are we forced to deal with this threat to the Prince's children than we receive word from Tiddieberg: Princess Josephine is to give birth by the end of the month! It HAS been a while since we sent our Pricness and our growing heir away, isn't it? Prince George is torn, terrified for his family in Georgetown but desperate to do his duty and to be there for his wife and his soon-to-be-born child. He is also, despite his youth and impulsiveness, one of our finest military minds, and there are major military decisions to be made. What shall we do?
C1. Tell Prince George he must remain at his post, and put familial matters aside, for the good of all his people
C2. Suggest that Prince George leave for Tiddieberg, to see to his duty as a husband and father
C3. Keep Prince George on-hand to maintain law, order, and authority in Georgetown during this fractious time
C4. Have Princess Josephine transported to Georgetown, to give birth here
C5. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

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While we wait on the council to make a decision, Victory island and Tiddieberg have got themselves some arms to reflect their status as lasting colonies with their own leaders!

>>4149427

A.We have to save the Lupin Idol! Without it, Red Needle Blanket might... be no more.

>A2. Focus our defences on the lupin idol. Informing them of what's coming of course.

B. You know what? I am tired of this charade and Prince George must be as well. I am fed up with humans fearing for their supremacy, We will reveal why blood children exist, but after the red caps genocide.

>B7. Publicly acknowledge Krazir's children as George's own, and grant them the status and protection even a bastard royal deserves. Let George raise his blade and defy everyone who thinks it's right to beset our own people AND his children.

C. Victory island was for Princess Josephine to take a break and be sound of mind. We should have told her to return earlier...

>C4. Have Princess Josephine transported to Georgetown, to give birth here

>D4. Farm the good grounds of Far Field.
>D7. Train soldiers for the battle that's to come. Double down on this one.
>D8. Carve warding sigils in our soldier's armor. They will need it

>>4149427
>A1. Consult with the lupin 'leaders' Fern and Wiseherb, and do as they advise
>A2. Focus our defences on the lupin idol

>B1. Hold a public trial, as before for the Redcap Loyalists
>B2. Condemn the harassment and vigilantism publicly
Make it clear that they all need to get along, especially in these trying times. Also, in response to >>4149941 , I think releasing that info would be a seriously bad move. We would instantly lose our Lupin allies, we would raise tensions, and (most importantly) I think it could lead to people figuring out Prince George's firstborn isn't who we say it is. That is to say, it could cause a succession crisis. Also, not sure what you mean by genociding the redcaps, since we're really not doing that well in the war. They have 2400~ population, whereas we have only a fraction of that. I think our best bet would be to secure the entrance (with the gems and shit) and then use explosives to block them off.

>C5. Let Prince George decide
I feel like this is something he should be able to decide. He sounds like a capable, responsible man who can be trusted with this.

>D4. Farm
>D7. Train or retrain our citizens
Train soldiers
>D8. Study or use magic
Focus on enchanting our arms and armor
>D11. Other
Begin building some roads to help connect Georgetown with Farfield and help our soldiers in moving around. Doesn't have to be anything too fancy yet

>>4149862
I like the heraldry. Is there a specific program you used to generate these?

>>4150554
>I like the heraldry. Is there a specific program you used to generate these?

Thanks! Just Photoshop.

>>4150554
>>4149941
Heading to bed, but apart from a divide on B and C, we seem pretty set so far. Will wait to see if the tie is broken in the morning!

>A1. Consult with the lupin 'leaders' Fern and Wiseherb, and do as they advise

>B7. Publicly acknowledge Krazir's children as George's own, and grant them the status and protection even a bastard royal deserves

>C4. Have Princess Josephine transported to Georgetown, to give birth here

>D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
>D4. Farm

>>4151470
>>4150554
>>4149941

The Council, and especially the prince, have tired of dancing around Gragir and Girgol's paternity, and of having to protect they and their mother from harassment by spycraft and subterfuge. With Princess Josephine and our rightful heir on their way to Georgetown, we decide it is time to explicitly acknowledge the semi-open secret of Prince George and Krazir's affair! The ripple of shock which travels through our people is muted, and has more to do with the two children and their ghastly appearance than it does with the Prince's cavorting and adultery; these things are frowned upon, but many remember our early days aboard flagship Holy Perona, when he first 'me't Krazir (and about a dozen other prostitutes, many of whom are now successful businesswomen or in our military). The news that we are assigning of security and status to a goblin (former?) prostitute and two bastard monster children is met with a certain amount of amusement and delight from the goblins of Georgetown, but with disapproval or even outrage by many humans, by the lupins (due to the blood-touched nature of the toddlers), and by the elves (who cannot help but see this as a closer tie between the crown and goblins, to their exclusion).

We are able to smooth at least some of this out, luckily, within the next few weeks.

Princess Josephine arrives, hugely pregnant and to great fanfare and about to birth a human heir. Her mage midwife Afraah al-Samaan takes the Prince aside, and informs him that she is to give birth any day, and while the baby is a tad late, it is NOT 'afflicted' by the blood magic energies which result in the blood children. For her part, Josephine's mind seems mended somewhat by her time away, or her anxieties at least calmed... But the stresses of traveling during pregnancy, and of learning that her husband has admitted to a scandalous affair and fathering controversial bastards in her absence, do little for her mood. She and al-Samaan retreat to her father Lord-Merchant Pearson's home to give birth there, despite Prince George's protestations.

Meanwhile, our council calls Wiseherb (the lupin diplomat) and Fern (our long-time ally and shamanic mage) to our meeting-chamber to discuss the matter of the idol. While we are committed to defend such an obviously-sacred totem on behalf of our loyal allies, we seek their council as to its true strategic value. It is a good thing that we do, apparently: we learn that the wooden idol is not merely a means to speak with their ancestors' spirits, but is in fact a powerful ward helping to stave off a longstanding blood magic spell which once allowed their redcap creators to set the lupins loose like half-mad hunting hounds upon their foes. Without the sacred idol, Fern in particular fears that her entire clan could be reduced to feral beasts--or worse, agents of the enemy! Wiseherb rallies the lupins of his clan, and we immediately order our soldiers and mercenaries to their aid...

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>>4151537

We train our civilians for war, preparing as many for the effort as possible. Our smiths who are not already thus training double down on the production of steel swords and armour, and we set our mages--under Fern's guidance--to the rapid installation of warding enchantments on their armour, while labourers distribute the enchanted bangles and bracelets which the northmen traded us. When we march to war, it is with nearly the full force of a sixty-strong army, short only Prince George, Krazir, and what few guards we must retain to protect our settlements from the slim possibility of ambush (after all, our Teardrop-powered divinations allow Archmage Virmoira to track the redcaps' movements, and we have their major routes heavily mined).

Unfortunately, we have no mines around the grove of the lupin idol. When two modified drill-borers fitted with buzzsaws tear their way over hills and through woods to meet the Red Needle Blanket lupins already massed to protect their sacred totem, there are no such explosives or spells to stop them, only wards to slow them and bodies to scatter of shred apart in their wake.... Until, that is, the Georgetown Loyalists arrive with reinforcements! Even when the borers burst open to reveal mutated, undead lupin pups by the dozen, great wolf-faced and man-faced berserkers, and redcap infantry, our brave men and women are more than a match: fern's howl goes up, amplified by the totem to rally the whole of her race to a war-rage. Our blood mages and archers deliver saved berserker-bood to the redcaps, turning them to a less-directed frenzy and breaking their ranks, while our armoured and warded swordsmen drive back the foes to their machines, then use the tactics of hot-and-cold enchantments in prescribed order to disable the treads of the great redcap machines and to break open their locking doors and force their surrender. Our archers and spearmen have the greatest trouble with the undead berserkers themselves, taking nearly 25% casualties in the disorganized brawl these pain-immune creatures engender... But with our healers and Fern's amplified warding, we are able to protect and evacuate the fallen, so that only ten lupins and four of our own perish, despite the apparent mismatch with our foes.

Two dozen redcaps fall to our blades, arrows, and the claws and jaws of the lupin warriors; seven more are captured, including a commanding officer the lupins tell us reeks of blood, and our mages confirm has an aura of magic about him.

Our people return to medical care in Georgetown indomitable defenders and champions of the realm! Better yet, they return to find that The Albatross Heart has returned with settlers, and the farmers of the far fields have brought us food fit for a feast: wild game, flavorful native herbs, and such wheat and potatoes as to furnish our cured meats for stew worthy of the old country!

Year 4, Month 8 arrives in triumph and celebration, despite our divisions and difficulties.

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>>4151568

Admiral Pippa Hussein's return is a joyous occasion... But maybe not as joyous or productive as it could have been. She brings less than 20 labourers with her despite the bounty of gems and exotic materials and artwork we sent with her, and two months away. The reasons become clear when the council calls upon her for a meeting, and she hands us a letter addressed to Prince George, from his brother: the King of Amica. He has heard word of our return trips, and has decided that as a minor colony, we ought to be paying taxes, and back-taxes on our last trade mission as well; Admiral Hussein lost half her cargo to this state-sanctioned banditry! The King also expresses surprise that Prince George still lives, but 'no great surprise that this meager offering is the best you could produce, so busy you must be with your frivolity and your pointless play-battles'. You instantly remember why your eventual goal is to overthrow the man.

Still, even the jealous anger this belittling letter inspires cannot dwarf the joy the Prince feels when his wife delivers a healthy, human, baby boy: our heir, at long last!

A. Red Needle Blanket's sapience and freedom have been preserved! Still, it must be said: it is troubling to know that these friends of ours have minds and souls that hinge on a single point of failure, and that our mutual enemies know of it. What should we do with this knowledge?
A1. Nothing--we have saved the day, and we can do it again!
A2. Banish the lupins from Georgetown, for our safety; suggest they stay close to their totem in a more settled and organized fashion
A3. Assign a garrison and begin constructing a fort around the totem, and pledge our protection
A4. Expand Georgetown proper to encompass the totem, so that it may be kept within the heart of our shared territory and guarded as we protect ourselves
A5. Other (write-in)

B. The far fields have become greatly productive, and are now easily self-sustaining. However, administrative difficulties persists, with any new instructions sent by runner through the woods. With the other offshoot colonies being locally-governed, there is talk of doing the same for the heavily-fortified fields. What are our thoughts?
B1. Establish roadways and simply continue to govern the far fields from Georgetown
B2. Assign Captain Aaron Owen as local leader, for his stalwart loyalty and leading of the victorious battle
B3. Assign Admiral Hussein leadership; she is owed lands after all, and her little sister has beaten her to that punch
B4. Assign leadership to James Reid, our eyes and ears in the town and a loyal spy
B5. Assign leadership to elven mage Anfalen Elyra, to help raise morale among the elves and because she has been so instrumental in the success of that settlement
B6. Assign the lands to Gragir, with Krazir as regent, since we HAVE acknowledged the lad as a Prince's son
B7. Other (write-in)

>>4151610
C. With the redcaps battled off and the vigilante mobs cowed by our announcement, our spies return to the matter of Thranons and her growing blood-cult. We know who her mother is, now, and that she is a woman with a great deal of influence in certain spheres, but also a lot to lose by our disapproval. What shall we do with this information?
C1. Embed a spy within Thranons' cult
C2. Embed a spy within her mother's brothel
C3. Confront her mother with our knowledge, and demand she reign in her daughter under threat of the shutdown of her brothel
C4. Storm the brothel and arrest Thranons
C5. Continue to monitor the situation, but take no drastic action
C6. Slip the information to the former vigilantes, and let one problem group sort out another
C7. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

BONUS: Feel free to suggest a name for our new heir, and/or the settlement at the far fields if you vote to grant them autonomy and don't just want it to be called "Farfield".

>>4151610
>A4. Expand Georgetown proper to encompass the totem, so that it may be kept within the heart of our shared territory and guarded as we protect ourselves

>B2. Assign Captain Aaron Owen as local leader, for his stalwart loyalty and leading of the victorious battle

>C6. Slip the information to the former vigilantes, and let one problem group sort out another

No preferce for D

>>4151610
>A3. Assign a garrison and begin constructing a fort around the totem, and pledge our protection

>B5. Assign leadership to elven mage Anfalen Elyra, to help raise morale among the elves and because she has been so instrumental in the success of that settlement

>C6. Slip the information to the former vigilantes, and let one problem group sort out another

>D4. Farm
>D5. Attempt to raise morale
>Revelry
Throw a big party in celebration of the birth of our heir and for the victory against the redcaps.
>D9. Study technology
Conduct studies on the Redcap machines
>D10. Diplomacy
Interrogate the redcaps captured, especially the commanding officer. We really don't know much about the redcaps

>Bonus:
Name our heir Remy, after his grandfather

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>>4151629
>>4152380
I'll wait on a tie-breaker vote tomorrow for A and B. For now, I did up some heraldry for what's shaping up to be our next official settlement out in the far fields!

>>4152745
Locking in C & D, but still awaiting a tie-breaker for A and B...

Working from home a bit, but I may well be under lockdown soon, so if people want to participate, I'll have plenty of time to run this.

>>4151610

A. Yah, *cough* let's do it so the protect them, haha. We are not inducting their population into ours, no sir, haha... don't worry no no no.

>A4. Expand Georgetown proper to encompass the totem, so that it may be kept within the heart of our shared territory and guarded as we protect ourselves

B. Paying our dues is key, but since a tiebreak is needed and indeed we have to look after morale

>B5. Assign leadership to elven mage Anfalen Elyra, to help raise morale among the elves and because she has been so instrumental in the success of that settlement

C. I am not keep on doing anything at all, since the bloodcult is not something inheretly evil however dangerous. Plus is locked!

D. Is locked as well

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>>4153941
>>4152380
>>4151629

We begin our month with a grand celebration--a raucous revel, as is our custom! Even the lupins enjoy the feasting, at least, though they take little interest in the drinking and seem actively put off by the sexual misadventures which characterize our people's festivities; perhaps our contraceptive herb smells of the blood magic which breeds it, or perhaps the sensuality of other species is inherently unpleasant to them.

So too do the lupins--or at least, Wiseherb and Fern--seem to have mixed feelings about the annexation of their sacred grove, and its walling-in from the nature without. Fern expresses heartfelt gratitude for our salvation of her people and our use of a great deal of our stored wood to help continue our pact of defence, but Wiseherb wonders aloud--or, well, telepathically--whether this measure can be reversed at soonest convenience, for the sake of the spirits and his people's customary habit of wide dispersal and nomadic living. With the menace of the redcaps still just beyond those walls, though, no lupins seem eager to let their rambunctious pups beyond our gates anytime soon.

Speaking of the redcaps, we devote our mages and scientists to studying their new landcrafts' workings, while we interrogate our seven captives. The latter produces more immediate results: Healer Rathiain Ennelis, an elven scholar and bit of a blood mage, proves especially useful in translating their derived elven tongue, and their commander is not at all hesitant to speak with us.

The redcap officer goes by Thage, and he is apparently an initiate of their priestly order who had been sent to destroy or poison the lupin idol to twist or destroy our canine companions, but that is not all they are planning. Oh no, he tells Healer Ennelis, his superiors in their holy order are even now working on a greater summoning spell to wipe us off the face of the continent! When asked why, he curtly explains that while they regard humans as better more elven than lupins, we are still a degenerate race in their eyes, and our elves seem to them to be 'corrupted and ill-bred'; goblins, 'whatever they are', strike them as utterly alien and upsetting... Not that you'd know it by how well his men respond to the 'carrot' of curvy and well-educated goblin escorts after a few drinks, confirming much of their commander's story and promising compliance. What worked on our last batch of prisoners seems to work on these ones... At least, until they learn the fate of Telkeg and their other predecessors. Still, our goblin spy Aasbaz--a soldier, but at home among the prostitutes during the 'interrogation', believes these men could be persuaded to lead us to the place where the summoning ritual is to be performed, for a surgical strike to cripple the redcap leadership and end this ghastly and genocidal spell-weaving... If we can risk the men, and mages, necessary.

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>>4154073

Meanwhile, Iron Lord al-Khalaf and his assigned engineers, smiths, and mages report back on the machines: he believes that the fuel they use is derived from subterranean stores of oil, distilled through some alchemical means; better yet, he believes this fuel can be sued for explosives as well! He also believes he understands the basic principle behind their engines, which use an initial energy generated through magical means to begin an alchemical process which drives the device. He believes he can produce a miniature proof-of-concept within a month or two, and he devotes the machine to our new young Prince Remy: The Remington Engine! He is, as always, keen to mention how much grander his designs could be, and how much greater the explosions he and adventurous young Wysard could produce, if we could just secure Redcap Pass...

While all this celebration and scheming is going on at home, we also send word to our forts in the far fields: they are to be their own settlement, aptly dubbed Farfield! We grant Anfalen Elyra the title of Lord Magus of Farfield, a move which surprises many of our people; it clearly upsets some of our human subjects to see an elf given title and land, perhaps even Admiral Hussein by her rigidity at the public declaration, but for elves and half-elves, it is a legitimization of their importance to our little principality. The Lord Magus, for his part, is quick to make his first request: the presence of the Chloromancer Urileth, his friend and colleague, to aid in the production of larger crop yields. It is an easy thing to grant, for chloromancers are more use there than tending our blasted earth, until the blood mages can expunge the redcap curse.

As for the frustrated humans, we give them somewhere to channel their frustrations: while the alcohol flows, we have our spies slip the former vigilante mob who assaulted the redcap loyalists and harassed Krazir and Prince George's children a tip that the goblin 'blood priestess' Thranons is staying in Bliastukt's brothel, using it as a base to spread her 'corrupting influence' through Georgetown. However, this proves perhaps a grave miscalculation: the half-drunk, bloodthirsty mob that attacks the brothel does not exercise jurisprudence, but takes to rape, plunder, brawling, and ultimately causes a fire that causes the death of several human and goblin patrons, several prostitutes, and Bliastukt herself when he refuses to leave in order to try to save her home and business from the blaze. Rather than being cowed, the mob is further inflamed by the slaying of two of their own by prostitutes who are also soldiers in their own right.

So does Month 9 arrive: with a grim chill on the wind and a fire inside our walls, both tempering our triumph. AT least the rain which begins to fall helps put out the latter...

>>4154090
A: First, the potential existential threat demands attention: whats hall we do with Thage's grim declarations, and with the otehr redcap prisoners?
A1. Seduce and bribe the redcap soldiers into guiding a strike force into the saves to abort this ritual in a surgical strike?
A2. Mass our forces at Redcap Pass for an all-out attack
A3. Continue interrogations (by what method?) to verify the report, lest these be lies to lure us into a trap
A4. Maintain our defences, strengthen our wards, and ready to whether whatever they plan to summon
A5. Summon the Mysterious Stranger to aid us in counter this threat through our own blood ritual
A6. Other (write-in)

B: The second most pressing matter is probably The Brothel Massacre. Nine dead, humans and goblins; a wealthy and respected merchant dead; children orphaned, human wives shamed by the circumstances of their husbands' demise, and vigilantes inflamed. It's not an ideal outcome, even before we receive word that Thranons' body has not been found, nor has she been seen around town since the massacre. What shall we do?
B1. Use this as an excuse to come down hard on the vigilantes, and to institute more rigid discipline
B2. Pin the responsibility on Thranons, her cult, and her mother, pardoning the vigilantes and downplaying their actions
B3. Order financial recompense and public humiliation for the guilty parties, but change nothing of our social order
B4. Impose stricter regulation of the brothels, and use this as an excuse to keep an eye out for Thranons
B5. Other (write-in)

C: Our mission to the mainland was also stymied by the pretender-king who sits on George's throne! It is an outrage.. But can we afford to take umbrage right now, with these other matters weighing so heavily on us?
C1. Let the slight go, and look into retribution or restitution later
C2. Attempt diplomacy with the distant island colony established by Prince George's father long ago, making common cause with the governor to undermine the king
C3. Send our navy to raid the island colony in retribution for the king's actions
C4. Send our navy to intercept sea trade, and to extract our rightful wealth this way without too many fatalities
C5. Attempt to make peace (at least for now) with the King, to negotiate lower tariffs
C6. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

oof this a hard one.

I will reply, QM, but at a latter date.

>>4154797
Hopefully not literally on a different day, because one hopes that by the end of today I'll be posting again in response to two-to-three voters.

>>4154098
>A1. Seduce and bribe the redcap soldiers into guiding a strike force into the saves to abort this ritual in a surgical strike?

>B1. Use this as an excuse to come down hard on the vigilantes, and to institute more rigid discipline


C2. Attempt diplomacy with the distant island colony established by Prince George's father long ago, making common cause with the governor to undermine the king

>>4154098
>A2. Mass our forces at Redcap Pass for an all-out attack
I'm skeptical the redcaps would lead us to anything but an ambush. I say this because getting useful info out of our previous prisoners took months and months of efforts, so for them to just lead us into the heart of their caves reeks of bs to me. I could be wrong though (have been before)

>B1. Use this as an excuse to come down hard on the vigilantes, and to institute more rigid discipline
They decided to burn down a brothel and kill a bunch of random people for no reason. They get an execution.

>C2. Attempt diplomacy with the distant island colony established by Prince George's father long ago, making common cause with the governor to undermine the king

>D4. Farm
>D7. Train or retrain our citizens
Continue squeezing out as many soldiers as we can manage to
>D8. Study magic
Support the elven effort to look into boosting yields using chloromancy
>D9. Study or advance technology
The idea is that taking the pass will allow our iron lord to do the research he's been looking into. Attack will probably be a failure, but you got to go through the motions

>>4154932
sowwy :( I was studying for once

>>4154098

A. If we move onto the offensive, the redcaps will get busy defending from us thus slowing down their ritual and giving us more time to train troops or get new allies.

>A2. Mass our forces at Redcap Pass for an all-out attack

B. I didn't wanted... damn it anon

>B1. Use this as an excuse to come down hard on the vigilantes, and to institute more rigid discipline

C. This... godamn it QM, stop being a good QM. When will we be comfy on a resource rich but unpopulated island.

>C1. Let the slight go, and look into retribution or restitution later

D. Okay, if we attack the Redcap Pass that will free up space for the lord smith to get as many minerals as possible. Besides that... food and water started to deplete sooner than I expected and that's not nice. I believe we will be able to procure those resources after this turn's assault.

>D6. Scry 'em redcap scouts with the Waterdrop of course to be able to advance with our troops as unnoticed as possible and attack the redcaps in a favorable situation. We have knowledge of the cave system thanks to the other redcaps so, could we strike any sensible location such as a temple or a magic-school-center-thing? Ideally we should go in force and destroy the evil circle but I don't think we can reach AND expect our troops to return alive.

>D7. Soldiers! We need soldiers from those laborers and hunters.
>D9. Doubling down in studying the materials needed to reproduce those engines or elaborate one of our own. He claimed some powerful explosives could be manufactured out of it as well. WELL HE GOTTA GIVE US RESULTS!!

>>4155366
>>4155446
>>4155565

For the sake of diverting resources from the supposes summoning ritual of the redcap priests and to acquire resources for Iron Lord al-Khalaf's researches (and to avoid falling into a trap set by our prisoners), we commit our forces to the palisade at Redcap Pass, and mass for an attack. This strike is bolstered by new recruits, taken from among the unskilled human labourers Admrial Hussein brought back or the lupin hunters determined to drive off the monsters who have so tormented their clan this last year. This is probably at elast partly motivated by the walling-in of their sacred grove, which has set many lupins to pacing anxiously around the interior walls of our settlement, and to the occasional mournful midnight howl.

Missing from this force, though, are goblins and men lost to infighting in the whoring district. The event is rightly viewed as a tragedy by many, and a failure by some council-members and spies. Thranons has still not been found; however, some intelligence from James Reid in Farfield suggests that the cult there has been growing among humans and goblins, a fact which might indicate she has gone to ground there. Despite this potential threat, we cannot deny it: we did more damage to Georgetown in attempting to shut the cult down than any concretely inflicted by the cultists... At least, so far, some remind us. We could do naught but set it right, either way: the ringleader Behrad Eftekhar was put to death for the crimes committed, and his men are placed in a penal brigade on the front lines of the coming war, to be freed if they fight and win or pardoned if they fall, but to not return to their homes until such time as they do one or the other. From their pay, we reimburse the goblins and humans who lost family members.

We also take time to ready Admiral Pippa Hussein to sail out to sea once more. This time, she is to go with diplomat and merchant Lord Remy Pearson in tow, and what trade goods and minor enchanted items we can manage, and with a message of peace and goodwill for Governor Cillian Fox of Fox-Eckwin Island. This was a small port-colony established among the islands in the days of the last King of the Unified States, and can be considered in some ways a predecessor to our own, though it never reached the continent or proved especially profitable for more than pearls, coral, and a few (admittedly delicious) fruits and tree-nuts. Part of this may be the slow population, or governance of Governor Fox's father. Unfortunately, with so much of our seaworthy population readying for war, The Admiral complains that she cannot get together more than ten bodies, many of them amateurish and untrained, from the civilians.

But, as we discover when the battle commences, we DO need all our warriors that we can muster.

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>>4155690
We fall into no redcap trap, but our straight-forward assault is also not easily hidden; when we enter the caves at Redcap Pass, we are met with... Shall we say, formidable resistance. There are cannons that blast our brave men, women, and midly-anthropomorphic wolf-creatures as they charge up to do battle, archers with their magic-poisoned arrows, and more uncaged undead berserkers (though fewer, we note, and mostly reanimated redcaps this time). We take 15 severe injuries, and five of those warriors never again will rise, but we close distance. Our enchanted armour and jewelry wards off many of the projectiles, and with Aaron Owen's well-trained soldiers driving a wedge into the heart of the foes' formation, al-Khalaf's naturalized mercenaries rushing in to surround the enemies and to stake out his claim to silversteel, gems, and underground oil, and our Lord Wysard and our other mages returning fire with fireballs, we battle the redcaps all the way back to beyond the first great open cave, where our men once sheltered for a week.

Redcap Pass is finally ours, and without a terrible summoned blood-boogeyman in sight to ruin the moment! As month 10 rolls in, we turn chaos and internal strife again into victory and celebration! However, we know that the redcaps will not so readily relinquish these resource-rich hills...

The council convenes once more. What shall we do?

A. Iron Lord al-Khalaf is true to his word, producing a small "Remington Engine" that seems to be able to move pistons and valves for some time with only the addition of some oil and a spark of magic! He regales the Prince and Princess with tales of horseless carriages, and war machines like the redcaps' own, under our command, as well as earth-shaking explosives that wouldn't drain our mystical resources, or could be further augmented with magic. All ours, with the right resources, and Redcap Pass is the key to acquiring these! It is not lost on the council, however, that The Iron Lord stands much to gain personally from securing the land and mining rights we promised him. What shall we do with the Pass?
A1. Strip-mine what we can access easily, and then pull back to the palisade and seal off the major causeway of teh redcaps with explosives
A2. Commit our forces to holding the entry caves and pass, and mine within the area we safely control
A3. Attempt to push further, to access the oil-wells deep belowground and advance our control of the battlefield
A4. Allow al-Khalaf to fund and arm forces with his own resources if he wants, but pull our people back to defend existing trade-routes and settlements
A5. Other (write-in)

>>4155727
>A1. Strip-mine what we can access easily, and then pull back to the palisade and seal off the major causeway of teh redcaps with explosives

fuck these guys

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>>4155727
B. We receive a message from Governor Margot Hussein Tiddieberg: the lights of the northmen have been seen once more! However, we have drained much of the population of the little settlement, including most who were able seafarers or worthy over-land hunters and traders. Any attempts to secure their magic trinkets, their oil, or anything else would require a commitment of some of our forces from the war with the redcaps and our defence. And, of course, Margot's older sister the Admiral has her ship parked in our harbour, awaiting sailors of her own to make the journey to Fox-Eckwin for our diplomatic mission! What should we do?
B1. Commit military forces to both expeditions
B2. Commit military forces to the Fox-Eckwin mission
B3. Commit forces to the Tiddieberg trade mission
B4. Keep all forces in reserve and delay both these missions
B5. Recruit able children to serve as crew in one or more of these missions (choose which)
B6. Other (write-in)

C. Some on the council still seem to have misgivings with Thranons and the bloodworship cult, and we have a promising lead on where their leader might be now that her mother and her brothel are... Err... Gone, as it were. What shall we do?
C1. Send our spies to attempt to track her down and capture (or kill?) her in Farfield
C2. Attempt to embed a spy in the known Georgetown bloodworship 'community', to learn more about their beliefs and attitude, and maybe Thranons' location
C3. Round up and punish (how?) the known or suspected bloodworshipers, to remove Thranons' support network and formally, finally put an end to this eerie foreign faith in our midst
C4. Let the persecution of the bloodworshipers end--it is not necessary, and potentially damaging to our social order
C5. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4155738
Sorry, was still posting up options!

Also, general update: I'm going back into the office for a day if government permits it, so my next post will likely be in the evening or the day after.

>>4155727
>A2. Commit our forces to holding the entry caves and pass, and mine within the area we safely control
I really want to seal these fucks off, but it won't mean anything if they do their genocide and ritual and kill us all. We can't afford to fall back either

>B3. Commit forces to the Tiddieberg trade mission

>C2. Attempt to embed a spy in the known Georgetown bloodworship 'community', to learn more about their beliefs and attitude, and maybe Thranons' location
I'd like to know more about them

>D1. Scout
>D11. Other
Send scouts to survey the newly opened up land for promising resources or routes. Extract as much as we can, including rail carts, cannon, and other pieces of technology
>D9. Study or advance technology
Put effort into the iron lord's research and in reverse engineering what we can from the redcaps

>A1. Strip-mine what we can access easily, and then pull back to the palisade and seal off the major causeway of teh redcaps with explosives
>B3. Commit forces to the Tiddieberg trade mission
>C2. Attempt to embed a spy in the known Georgetown bloodworship 'community', to learn more about their beliefs and attitude, and maybe Thranons' location

>D2 & D4

>>4157222
>>4155980
>>4155738
Locking in A, B, and C. Any tie-breakers interested in D? I'll check in on that before I post (starting to write it right now), and modify it accordingly. If nobody breaks the tie on D, I'll roll for it among selected options.

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>>4157324
Fearful of the prospect of losing the cave and seeing it turn back into a staging point for redcap assaults on our populace, we instruct our men to help al-Khalaf and his miners strip as much valuable material as possible before we test the Iron Lord’s new explosives on the redcaps’ tunnels, and seal this gaping portal to the world below off. The decision clearly disappoints Lord al-Khalaf, but we refuse to risk our peoples’ lives for his profits or for technological advancements. On the bright side, our loot-and-plunder approach also nets us rails, carts, cannons, and many redcap armaments to examine! Our scouts also note esigns of several sacrificial sites with accompanying mass graves, signs of a troll population in the area, and a giant spider nest.

Spy James Read sees no sign of Thranons in Farfield, though he notes that he has seen humans and goblins believed to be bloodworshipers visiting with our two Redcap Loyalists from time to time, and more frequently since the goblin blood priestess went to ground. To further investigate the cultists, we embed Spy Kaleb Foster among the Georgetown bloodworshipers; as a known father of two ‘bloodchildren’ himself, he fits the profile of a typical recruit. It takes most of the month for him to earn their trust, but he learns a great deal about their apparent ideology.

The Georgetown cult’s particular brand of blood-themed religiosity seems to hinge on the idea that the birth of the bloodchildren is an omen of great things to come, and that they herald a new age and a new civilization for this brave new world in the east. They wish to abandon old ways, old gods, and old attachments to Amica to forge something grander on this continent, and they believe that blood magic is the way by which this realm should be mastered, expanded, and populated. Perhaps the most peculiar and dangerous thing is that they clearly have a particular fascinating with, and apparent reverence for, George’s seemingly-cursed son and daughter. However, Foster reports that without their prophet, they seem at a loss for what they should do besides gather in basements, drink blood-red wine, and muse about the shape of their hypothetical future society.

While our spies are spying, we ready our people to trade up north. Snow is falling, after all, and the northern lights have been spotted! Fox-Eckwin is an unknown, but the northmen and their magical goods are a known quantity! Plus, they have that potent burning oil… Perhaps a useful substitute for al-Khalaf and Wysard’s experiments? We send up pelts, alcohol, blue-grey jade sculptures from Victory Island, and more enchanted weapons and warding-totems; we also send soldiers and hunters to furnish the crew (all the more reason, we reason, to seal the pass from largescale attack).

As Month 11 rolls in with buffeting blizzards, our council gathers around the great mystic flame in our town’s centre to plan for the end of Year 4, and the year to come.

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>>4157396
A. Many children will be graduating from mage college and our vocational schools, or coming of age to truly join in their family business. These institutions were built under our council’s instruction to help guide these young minds… So, where have our teachers been focusing their efforts?
A1. Training as many mages as possible (preferred disciplines?)
A2. Training soldiers to reinforce our armies
A3. Training carpenters, fishermen, and sailors, to build our weakened naval force up to something more befitting a coastal trading nation
A4. Training engineers, alchemists, and smiths to replicate the redcap technology we’ve captured
A5. Training farmers and labourers to help tend our fields and keep our people fed
A6. Other (write-in)

B. What move should we take in regards to the bloodworshipers amongst us, given our new information?
B1. Continue to observe them with our spies, but leave them be
B2. Seek out Thranons, and quickly if possible—if we can ‘behead the snake’ by capturing (or killing?) her, we can leave these strange people directionless, and harmless
B3. We’ve heard enough—these people are deluded and heretical, and their vision of a bloodchild-led society trading in dark magic is abhorrent, so we should uncover all the members, and then have them arrested
B4. Embrace them and their vision of our children as masters of this strange place; this is a good opportunity to fold their bloody faith into Reformism, so they don’t take up any of the degeneracy of the redcap ‘bloodworship’
B5. Other (write-in)

C. And what of the redcap captives, their officer Thage, and the doomsday prophecy of our peoples’ genocide which he pronounced?
C1. Tell Thage we’ve called his bluff, beaten his people, and that he’d better tell us what he knows if he doesn’t want to be executed (are we bluffing? Specify)
C2. Interrogate the redcap prisoners (what methods?) to get more information on this supposed ritual, and where it might be held
C3. Send spies, hunters, and mages to scout the remaining redcap passages and to seek out evidence of this plot (and end it, if they find evidence)
C4. Have our Redcap Loyalists speak with our captives, and offer them amnesty in Farfield if they defect
C5. Just kill ‘em already; we have the information we need, and an enemy mage in our city is dangerous
C6. Other (write-in)

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4157416

A. I think tech is where the money's at since there is abundance here, we won't work from scratch but rather reverse-engineer redcap stuff (it's x-com baby) and lastly, we will produce things that have a huge export potential.

>A4. Training engineers, alchemists, and smiths to replicate the redcap technology we’ve captured

B. A religion that LOOKS bad doesn't mean it IS. GOD.

>B1. Continue to observe them with our spies, but leave them be

C. OH GOD. QUIT IT REEEEEEEEEE

>C5. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

D. We secured (ish) the red cap pass, so that leaves us with some breathing room. Food is *OK* but let't not count on in with how chilly and snowy things are. Anyway, I fear that the pass is not easy to maintain, so we better mine as much as possible.

>D1. Scout into the caves, looking for any magical-ish stuff. I wonder if MILF Vimoira could prepare a trinket or two that reacted at blood magic.

>D8. Prepare magic divination... scrolls? that warns us when the redcaps are near. Maybe we can use the new redcap captives for their flesh and blood in order to make the scrolls. How about tanning their skin into leather? The scrolls could then ease the MGS: Tactical Espionage Action boys' work that will scout into the caves.

>D9. DOUBLE DOWN IN COMBUSTION. If we find ways to refine those oils into more blow--y liquids, it'd be amazing. Imagine if we condense a paste that sticks to surfaces and explodes! Or liquids that burn hot enough that it can bore a hole into the redcap drill-machines or, lastly, an explosive so vile that it can blow the silvered metal walls of the redcap capital (or was it a temple?)

>>4158271
Will advance with this if nothing else comes in in the next few hours.

>>4158271
I'll support this to get things moving

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>>4158723
>>4158271

We celebrate the arrival of the year's end, and the closure of Redcap Pass to our subterranean adversaries, with the execution of the redcap blood-priest and commanding officer who predicted our demise! Thage and his men are put to death in the public square, to great aplomb by our victorious warriors and lupin allies. Even as the sword comes down, though, Thage does not waver in his resolve--he even seems to smirk slightly as his head is removed from his shoulders.

Unable to shake the dread that the sight and the dark prophecy of the deceased redcap officer bring on, the council calls Archmage Virmoira and Royal Mage Watson before us. We request that they turn their studies and their circles to the creation of better wards and warnings, triggered by the presence of redcaps or their blood magic near our settlement. To be forewarned, after all, is to be forearmed. With new students graduating from their college into the fields and divination and warding, and reports of magic-adept novices in Tiddieberg and Farfield as well, they have more than enough magical potential at their disposal. Royal Mage Watson, new and nervous father to a half-elven daughter by way of his 'colleague' Healer Ennelis, is eager to aid in protecting our people from a force he so mistrusts. Archmage Virmoira, presented with the remains of our executed prisoners as research materials, can barely hide an obvious thrill to learn more of blood magic's potential. They set to work immediately.

------------------------------------------

Our man Foster, still embedded in the blood cult, reports mixed reactions among the strange group at their next meeting. Some fear what the obvious animosity and fear in the crowd might mean for they themselves, were they to be discovered in their peculiar faith. Others worry for their children; if the redcaps retaliate, or if Thage's death brings down a curse, what might that mean for the popular sentiment towards their bloody-haired twins? Most, though, seem to agree that the blood magic of the redcaps is worth learning from, but not what they seek to emulate.

Foster also makes particular note of a new arrival, a human man, who reveals that his half-elven lover has borne him bloody-haired and pointed-eared twins--the first known half-elven blood children. The man reports that he dyed their hair brown as best he could with dyes, in an effort to hide them from the feared persecution, which apparently gained mxied sympathy and mockery from his fellow bloodworshipers.

The most intriguing note in Spy Foster's report is that "The Priestess" is still said to be alive, but away and "learning just such dark secrets" as they may selectively put to use one day. More evidence that she is holed up with our Redcap loyalists in Farfield, or has she gone elsewhere to learn from the Mysterious Stranegr himself, or from our redcap foes below the ground?

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>>4158925

The absolute glut of young engineers and smiths which formally enter into their apprenticeships this year is a huge boon to our iron Lord al-Khalaf's endeavours. He sets up elaborate laboratories, workshops, and shared testing grounds with Lord Wysard and the goblin engineer-cum-alchemist Thekuh.

Thekuh is no longer alone or assisted only by amateurs in her dabblings with explosive chemicals, either: she has trained up ten alchemists, human goblin and half-elf, and has worked out a means to produce highly-explosive powders from metalworking and mining byproducts, and how to mix these with animal fats to make a paste; by leading a flammable wick to it, one may set delayed explosions even without a mage! With the elemental magic and enchantments Wysard specializes in, a battalion with an alchemist, a mage, and a dozen soldiers may effectively sabotage war machines and collapses or burst through mine shafts in short order!

The iron Lord, meanwhile, has great success with producing powered carts, and even hand-held versions of the tree-cutting and tunnel-boring mechanisms from the redcap land-craft. However, he still lacks sufficient fuel, and what Thekuh produces is far too volatile--something the brilliant-but-crazed gobliness takes a near sexual delight in, but which could easily cost a vehicle's driver or a tool's operator life and limb. Lord al-Khalaf is as subtle as always (as in: not very) when he suggests to the council that a more permanent mining operation at Redcap Pass would really be to all our people's lasting benefit, especially if we were to delve deeper to secure the oil wells of our redcap enemies.

Luckily, we are able to cut the repetitive conversation short when our trading delegation returns! Per our instructions, Admiral Hussein and Lord-Merchant Pearson prioritized just what al-Khalaf so requires: a potent and reliable fuel! For great quantities of alcohol and elementally-enchanted items, our delegation was able to secure dozens of glass decanters and jars, and many metal barrels of strange manufacture containing the crystal-clear, distilled fire-oil of the northmen! It isn't enough to quiet al-Khalaf's needling to establish his mining claim, but it DOES give him something to keep him busy with his fellow technologists.

As a concession to the Iron Lord, we also send some of our soldiers down into the caves through small side-chutes, to check for signs of blood-magic rituals or items. With our mages still working hard at creating divination items sensitive to such energies, we are forced to send one of our blood mages instead. This nearly backfires when our warriors and scouts find, in lieu of such magic, a tribe of angry trolls which drive them back; luckily, the blood mage in question is also a skilled healer, and is able to mend their injuries and those of all but two who the trolls bludgeoned and took back as (one assumes) snacks. They DO find a vein of silvery ore, though, which excited the Iron Lord plenty.

>>4158955
And so the council convenes the final meeting of Year 4, in the dark of a winter night warmed by the light of progress and the heat of the customary magic fire--now supplemented by northman fire-oils!

A. The technologists are making great progress at Redcap Pass, and Iron Lord al-Khalaf in particular is adamant that this new, easily-accessible vein of silvery ore could allow our smiths and engineers to great more automated tools powered by his patented "Remington engines". However, we know taht not every chute was sealed off to the redcaps, and we still haven't found a way to seek out and eliminate the threat of their (supposed) genocidal summoning spell. What shall we do?
A1. Hold our ground at Redcap Pass, but do not establish anything like a permanent settlement yet
A2. Establish a more permanent settlement at the pass, using the palisade and technologists' working spaces as a starting point for a well-defended fort
A3. Send more scouts and troops down into the tunnels as soon as possible, to make this pass safer for immediate settlement
A4. Encourage the Iron Lord to grab what he can and move his operations elsewhere; we will not settle such a dangerous pass anytime soon, and we cannot risk casters and technologists in such a dangerous place for anotehr month
A5. Other (write-in)

B. Wiseherb or the lupins approaches the Prince and Council for another meeting, wondering if now that the redcaps have been beaten back and no longer so freely ram the wilderness, we might remove the walls around his people's sacred grove and totem. We HAVE noticed his people growing antsy and depressed around our settlement. Conversely, a young Polytheist theologian by the name of Christopher Green also approaches us, seeking to alleviate the obvious suffering of the lupins by offering teachings in our people's works and ways (and, one cannot help but assume, in his faith). What shall we do?
B1. Take down the walls around the grove and let the lupins roam free once more
B2. Refuse Wiseherb's request, for the danger is still too great for now
B3. Refuse Wiseherb's request, but offer the services of Theologian Green to help his people better adapt to their current situation
B4. Other (write-in)

C. How shall we pursue the lead on Thranons the Blood Priestess?
C1. Arrest and interrogate the cultists in Georgetown
C2. Confront the Redcap Loyalists in Farfield
C3. Continue to observe, using our embedded spy and James Read in Farfield to track her down
C4. Wait and use our blood magic-detecting spellcraft to find her when the research is completed
C5. Leave Thranons and her followers be, and handle her when/if she returns
C6. Other (write-in)

>>4158987

D. How else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

[NOTE: Any further trade or diplomacy with the northmen, or advancements of our planned delegation to Fox-Eckwin Island and their Amican colonists, would fall under D as well]

[P.S. I couldn't fit it in anywhere, but the huge shaggy northern beasts we traded for Thick Fog Lingering clan are now of suitable size, if you wished to try to train them for anything but use as beasts of burden, or breed more]

>>4158987

Sorry for not replying faster QM. I had time to check now that's super late.

>A1. Hold our ground at Redcap Pass, but do not establish anything like a permanent settlement yet

B. I feel bad for the Lupins. I don't want to force them to be trapped behind walls because of a threat. As long as we maintain the offensive I doubt the redcaps will hurt them
>B1. Take down the walls around the grove and let the lupins roam free once more

C. I still believe their blood religion won't harm georgetown.
>C4. Wait and use our blood magic-detecting spellcraft to find her when the research is completed.

D. Okay, we need to poke at the red caps again but I suggest a scout & ambush maneuver, what do I mean with this. We will continously scout the non-collapsed tunnels and passages inching forward bit by bit, seeding mines as we advance. When we meet resistance we will simply fight long enough and fake a retreat. I believe this way the blood thirsty redcaps and their zombie-ish berserkers won't notice the mines untill it's too late.

If there is more than one tunnel, we can repeat this as many times as possible, collapsing them one by one, reducing their hard to replace numbers and keeping ours as high as possible.

>D1 or D10. I am not sure where does my strategy falls into.
>D8. Dedicate our mages to use the respective magic for those mines
>D8. Speed up the divination study and production of charms. I would guess it would eventually complete, but we need it sooner than later.
>D9. Study redcap cannons and compare them to ours. While we have already reviewed them, maybe we spark new ideas like changing the cannon-ball's shape to face against the armoured drills. Maybe make a smaller cannon that needs less maintenance and effort to carry, or a huge one!

>>4159262
Don't sweat it! I have some work stuff to attend to tomorrow, but will post in the afternoon or evening most likely, or if I see there's two or three votes before then and get the opportunity.

>>4158987
I probably didn't need to be in such a hurry to post, though. Time to correct some typos:
> could allow our smiths and engineers to CREATE more automated tools
>Wiseherb OF the lupins approaches
>no longer so freely ROAM the wilderness

>>4158987
>A3. Send more scouts and troops down into the tunnels as soon as possible, to make this pass safer for immediate settlement

>B3. Refuse Wiseherb's request, but offer the services of Theologian Green to help his people better adapt to their current situation
Taking down the walls this soon is too much of a risk. Promise them we'll take them down when we can be sure the redcaps won't attack. Let Green distract them in the meantime.

>C3. Continue to observe, using our embedded spy and James Read in Farfield to track her down
If they turn out not to be so bad, I'm thinking we can give them a blanket amnesty and bring them back into the fold.

>D1. Scout
Scout the tunnels and look for active redcaps or resources. Bring along explosives and elemental fire grenades to deal with any trolls
>D8. Study or use magic
Use fire mines to cover weak points in the tunnel network.
>D9. Study or advance technology
Experiment with projectile weapons incorporating oil and fire. Have these guys experiment a good distance away from everyone else, of course.
>D10. Diplomacy
Congratulate Hussein and Pearson, and then send them off to Fox-Eckwin. Ideally we can use them as a proxy for trade with the mainland without paying their """"taxes""""

Any word on Josephine and Remy? She seemed to be in a bad spot last we heard.

>>4159262
>>4159328
Awaiting a tiebreaker, so I'm afraid my post will have to wait until after my work meeting today.

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>>4159328
>>4159262

The winter proves unexpectedly harsh, as Year 5 arrives. Even with our chloromancers and elementalists working overtime, to enable food production and transport, we use up much of our existing food reserves to see our people through. It doesn't help that, even now, Victory Island has relatively few farmers or hunters, and many of the best hunters and fishermen Tiddieberg had were drafted into our war or trading expeditions; both settlements have become increasingly dependent upon trading the goods they produce for food from Georgetown and Farfield. With more and more hungry mouths to feed, it may be tiem to expand outward soon, or to attempt once more to remove the curse from our old fields.

For this reason, though we are sympathetic to al-Khalaf's desire to settle Redcap Pass, we hold off on any such commitment. Instead, we busy him and the Thekuh with studying the northman fire-oil and the salvaged redcap cannons.

Archmage Virmoira and Zane Watson direct their circles in tandem all the while, preparing mystical charms to detect blood magic and redcap aggression. Watson is ever the more cautious: he and his lover Ennelis, aided by young graduates of his academy, are able to repurpose some northman jewelry to glow red in the presence of blood magic, growing brighter as the wearer approaches. Virmoira, darker and more adventurous in her studies, produces something altogether more unsettling, but also more impressive: taking the blood and stretched, tanned skin of Thage, and taking advantage of the maps which the Redcap Loyalist Gittig provided us, she produces a true relic of her craft: a map of the mountains which will blossom with blood whenever redcaps mass in great numbers in the upper caves or emerge to the surface! We try to ignore the touch of bloody red to her pupils as she presents us this prize.

The Iron Lord reports back not long after. The fire-oil is perfect for fueling automated tools, but is apparently quite hard on the Remington engines in the long run, making it a poor fuel for larger vehicles. It is not especially explosive, but Thekuh excitedly gushes over its potential as a weapon, akin to dumping boiling oil on an enemy combatant during a siege but with a flame that does not quickly extinguish, and which can spread! Using the "hollow shell" technology by which the redcap cannons delivered the spider-plague unto our palisade, she has created cannonballs which explode on impact to release flaming fire-oil: incendiary explosions which are truly terrifying to imagine! The technologists have also fashioned some grenades with the same capacities, traditional mystical explosives, burning or explosive pastes, efficient torches and lanterns, and more from the bounty of materials we have lately provided.

Armed with these new mystical and mundane tools and eager to safeguard our people and settle the pass, we send scouts--hunters, spies, soldiers, medics, and bold adventurer Lord Wysard--into the tunnels.

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>>4161303

The mission of our scouts is simple: prod at the redcaps, using divined knowledge and their blood-seeking charms to avoid large concentrations, and instead to ambush smaller forces and seed mines strategically. If they find evidence of any blood-magic rituals, they are to end them with extreme prejudice.

While Lord Wysard and the troops set to work doing this, we check in with our spies. Our man Foster, we cannot help but notice, seems increasingly enamored with the cultists he spends his evenings with: his reports grow a touch more flowery, discussing the observations they report of their growing 'blood children', of their keen intelligence and their wisdom beyond their years. As the father of blood children himself, perhaps he cannot help but enjoy the thought of a future defined in part by them, and to see evidence of their importance and brilliance. Still, Foster is OUR man, and he reports that there have been murmurs of word from 'The Priestess', and her return by year's end, and with some sort of important news.

James Read in Farfield sends word as well: there can be no denying that bloodworship is increasingly popular there, nearly as popular as Amican Polytheism in Georgetown by this point, and the humans and goblins who practice it are no longer especially shy or secretive about their visits to the Redcap Loyalists. Perhaps not coincidentally, Governor Elyra reports that the lupin hunters and soldiers defending Farfield from attack have begun to stray further from town and to experience obvious discomfort within its borders, and that the Thick Fog Lingering mercenaries are requesting to return to Tiddieberg and their homes in the northern woods.

The Council mulls over this. While we do so, we also take some time to check in with Princess Josephine and our heir, Prince Remy. We've seen little of either except at official functions, where the Princess has lately been the model of quiet and stately stability. Prince George reports much the same, though he notes that she is perhaps a touch overprotective of their son, even from HIM at times, and will not leave him in the care of George or the nursemaids for long. Moreover, since we have taken Krazir and his other children into our protection as semi-official members of the royal house, there has been undeniable friction between his wife and lover whenever they run into each other, and primarily on Josephine's part.

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>>4161333
When we approach the Princess herself, we note a certain obsessiveness about her rituals of cleaning, feeding, and tending to young Prince Remy, but also the sign of a return to the keen faculties and ambition which encouraged us to choose her as a good Princess: she notes that with "that terrible matter" of the Brothel Massacre, which so affected "Krazir's friends and colleagues", and with "all this blood cult nonsense going on" (how did she hear about that, one wonders?), it might be better to move "the gobliness and her children" to Tiddieberg or Farfield; for "their own protection, of course." To us, it sounds like to removal of rivals for her husband's attention and her favoured son's succession; it also strikes us that she seems to have deluded herself, that Gragir, the blood-red boy-child, IS Krazir's son, and not her own.

A complicated first month of Year 5 draws to a close with the return of our scouts. They are battered, and at least one of the soldiers is badly burned and missing a limb (an accident with a mine while fleeing a skirmish, Lord Wysard reports), but there are no fatalities among them. This is the good news. The bad news comes in the form of The Mysterious Stranger--that dapper red-haired half-elf in black, believed to be a dark spirit attuned to blood magic, who has helped both us and (apparently) the redcaps in the last three years. It is he who is helping to carry the wounded soldier to the palisade, though true to his custom he stops at the gate and allows others to take the man inside, awaiting our permission to enter.

Wysard explains the situation: his unit has great success rooting out redcaps and striking at them. Soldiers and apparent miners were driven back or slain as the situation warranted, their tools and resources seized or destroyed with the collapse of tunnels. However, they did not just find redcaps, but the dreaded workings of blood magic. Wysard is blase about it, fearless to an absolute fault, but his report is clear: the redcaps are definitely working a great spell, their soldiers marching chain-gangs of trolls and emaciated fellow redcaps, caged harpies and beasts, down to a specific chamber that he describes as "a great room of carved channels, a reservoir, all for the rivers of blood to flow into". Lord Wysard and his forces attempted to strike at this obvious danger, and at the mage-priests directing the ritual... But the enemy forces were too great, their magic too potent, and a greater spirit than The Stranger was at their back. Wysard and his men were driven to a full retreat, and it was then that they met The Stranger, who led them to the surface by a lesser-traveled route, which they sealed behind them with the remainder of their explosives.

>>4161361
We glance out from the tower where we and Wysard hold our conference; down below, outside the walls, the Mysterious Stranger looks back, and doffs his cap.

The blizzard continues unabated as we return to Georgetown. The Archmage is waiting, anxiety written across her eerily-flawless elven features... But we do not need Virmoira's map to detect the bubbling-up of blood in the mountains.

Year 5, Month 2, is here.

A. Firstly what of the friction in Farfield? With our insistence upon keeping the walls in place (perhaps wise, with this renewed danger from the redcaps), we have growing anxiety among lupins in two settlements now. What shall we do?
A1. Crack down on bloodworship and encourage Fern, the lupin shaman, to hold a ritual to help her people feel more at-home
A2. Encourage the Thick Fog Lingering lupins, and any others who wish to join them, to travel to Tiddieberg to help bolster their food production and separate them from the stresses of the walls and the scent of blood magic
A3. Allow Theologian Green to attempt to convert the lupins to his faith so that they may better integrate
A4. Take down the walls around Red Needle Blanket's idol and let the lupins do as they will; we cannot hold them against their will or order them about
A5. Make it clear that the lupins in our settlements are Prince George's subjects, as are the bloodworshipers, and they must all learn to live with one another or be banished or punished as with any other subject
A6. Other (write-in)

B. And what of Princess Josephine's "humble proposal" that we have Krazir and the prince's children move elsewhere? What of her knowledge of our spy's reports, and our activities, for that matter? She has clearly been taking to some spycraft of her own these last few months since she has returned.
B1. She is our Princess, Prince Remy is our heir, and we will respect her wishes
B2. Bring these "requests" to prince George's attention; one doubts that he would see his beloved and his firstborn children banished from his life
B3. Outright refuse the request, and consult with prince George and her father Lord-Merchant Pearson about her mental state and her suitability as a mother right now
B4. Other (write-in)

>>4161417
C. At last,w e come to the most pressing matter: Wysard's expedition, The Mysterious Stranger, and the dark tidings they bring. Archmage Virmoira confirms it: either their longstanding plans for a grand blood ritual have come to a planned crescendo, or else our victories and further provocations have forced their hand, but the redcaps are massing deep beneath The Harpy Hills, presumably for an assault on Farfield. But what sort of ritual are they working? What sort of assault must we defend against? And how?
C1. Invite the Mysterious Stranger in, to get answers and aid such as he can offer
C2. Banish The Mysterious Stranger, and solve this problem the old-fashioned way: shift our troops and our armaments to Farfield, redouble wards and mines, and prepare for a siege
C3. Keep our forces close to home, to protect Georgetown proper but all possible means--it is the heart of our people
C4. Prepare an evacuation of Farfield, Redcap Pass, and even Georgetown if need be
C5. Use our map to direct an assault on the massed forces, with all available strength we can muster!
C6. Other (write-in)

D. Lastly, how else shall we focus their efforts this month? Choose four, or double down on two:
D1. Scout (where?)
D2. Gather wood for fuel and/or construction
D3. Fish/Hunt/Forage/Gather Water (where?)
D4. Farm
D5. Attempt to raise morale (religious ceremony? grand speech? revelry?)
D6. Scry (What/Who/Where? Use the Teardrop, or no?)
D7. Train or retrain our citizens (pick a profession; if we already have members, training is more likely to succeed)
D8. Study or use magic (what kind?)
D9. Study or advance technology (what kind?)
D10. War or Diplomacy (who, where, what?)
D11. Other (write in)

>>4161417
>A4. Take down the walls around Red Needle Blanket's idol and let the lupins do as they will; we cannot hold them against their will or order them about
Do it just after the assault on the redcaps. Also, make it clear that the lupins have to help us in stopping the redcap ritual though

>B2. Bring these "requests" to prince George's attention; one doubts that he would see his beloved and his firstborn children banished from his life
George is the head of his family. It's his right to decide this

>C1. Invite the Mysterious Stranger in, to get answers and aid such as he can offer
I don't care if this guy is the fucking devil (he probably is). I want those redcaps dead before their ritual kills everyone (or worse). And unless the encounter changes things,
>C5. Use our map to direct an assault on the massed forces, with all available strength we can muster!

>D3. Fish/Hunt
I'm surprised how much food we lost last time (over 2k units)
>D8. Study or use magic
Look into creating more devastating elemental spells, ones strong enough to take out whatever monstrosities the redcaps are making. Combine elemental and blood magic if need be (but ideally find a way to not resort to that)
>D9. Study or advance technology
Devise a way to make the cannon we have more mobile and easier to use in battle. While we're at it, rip off the cannon from our naval vessels and bring them to the pass (if we haven't already)
>D10. War
Mass our troops and make a counter assault to stop the rituals

>>4162584
If we don't get another reply by end of day, we'll move forward with this!

>>4162584
...
fuck it, it all checks out. Let's go anon. LET'S GO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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>>4162584
Our food reserves start to rise once more as we set as many of our farmers, fishermen, and laborers as possible to work producing food. With our local Georgetown fields still unusable and our economy focused on science , development, and warfare, our haul is smaller than it might otherwise be, but our great horned beasts still haul huge sheafs of wheat and carts full of potatoes from Farfield to supplement our fishing industry. Better yet, with the walls brought down around the idol and moved inwards, the local lupins are quick to disperse once more, and as thanks they bring us some of the bounty of their hunt!

Though we are grateful to the lupins for their help, and they to us for our defense of their people, we still need more from them. It is with obvious fear and discomfort that Fern joins our mages and Prince George in the palisade to meet with The Mysterious Stranger. The lupin shaman can hardly keep her eyes away from the doors and windows, as if seeking escape; Royal Mage Watson clearly shares the sentiment, by his own body language. We need all hands on deck, however, and all available means to end the existential threat to our people once and for all.

It is with graciousness and patience (and, admittedly, no small amount of condescending smugness) that The Stranger explains the principles by which we might turn the use of blood magic to the bolstering of elemental force: a sacrifice of some of one's own vitality, or the life of another, can grant a potent boost to spellcraft for a time afterwards; the blood of a sacrificed being, especially a magical one or one with a strong life force (he doesn't bring up children this time, but by now we know by now what he's hinting at) can create a potent elixir which can later be used to invoke these same effects. Furthermore, one can make blood boil in veins with fire magic, if one taps into the life energies of blood magic; a brain can be frozen, pain inflicted across the nerves with electricity, all bypassing armour and the protection of machines. It all makes a disturbing amount of sense to our mages, and Archmage Virmoira takes very, very detailed notes.

More disturbing than this aid is what The Mysterious Stranger can tell us of what we are up against: a foe from nightmares, a great shadowy beast akin to "what you and your people might call a demon". The sacrifice of our captured soldiers, of lupins, and of traitorous redcaps has all been to feed this spirit, a hairy winged thing which matches what Wysard's team reported seeing soaked in blood in that grim chamber down beneath Redcap Pass. This being itself is as strong as a dozen men, but The Mysterious Stranger informs us that "it is not my brother's might which you should fear, but his knowledge," for he knows the secrets of spells which can do all the Stranger has taught us and more, but across entire bloodlines with a single casting. With our entire settlement being founded by a few dozen families, it could mean... The end.

>>4164075
Lord al-Khalaf and Thekuh technologists manage to create a selecting of portable "grenade launchers"--small cannons, which two men may roll into the field, and which can fire hollow projectiles containing oil or charmed to deliver a magical impact; they cannot deliver a solid projectile over any distance, however, without using more powder than the small barrels can withstand. Even with these limitations, this artillery makes for a formidable barrage in their demonstration, and could definitely provide cover for an advance to (or a retreat from) the Harpy Hills!

And advance we do, with every man and woman at our disposable. Even our lupin allies come with us, for as much as our renewed interest in blood magic clearly makes our settlement repulsive to their senses and sensibilities, their dark and bloody creators have inflicted too much harm and terror upon their families for Red Needle Blanket to ignore, and the mercenaries from Thick Fog Lingering require our vessels to make it back home in any reasonable amount of time. Precious few are left at home to defend Georgetown, even; Prince George himself travels with our forces, with Captain Aaron Owen, and a smattering of valuable soldiers, enlisted women, and goblinesses left to protect our civilians and the lupins' cubs. A terse Prince George instructs Krazir to defend their family, including his obviously-displeased wife; Princess Josephine holds her tongue and swallows her distaste, though, and simply gives her husband and sovereign the blessing of a farewell kiss. Our mages erect what wards they can to offer maximum protection, and then most of them leave to join our small army. It is almost a full third of our working-age population, but it is still so few compared to what we have been told our foes can muster...

>>4164116
But we have The Stranger's advice, we have our technology and our magic; we have Virmoira's map, our charms, our wards, and Fern's resounding psychic howl to spur her people to war! When we arrive in the hills, it is impossible to hide our advance, but still the redcaps are caught off-guard: how could they have expected we would root out the location of their subterranean spellcraft with such certainty as to commit the whole of our forces? Still, they rush to meet us, and in numbers to easily rival our own and then some!

Our versatility is our advantage. Our barrage of enchanted and blazing fire-oil projectiles catches them off-guard on their initial defensive charge; when they fall back, our map allows Virmoira to divine their movements, and our troops move in to meet them, capturing or killing the initial wave of redcap defenders to the last man. Many more await in the dark tunnels and rough-hewn unholy sepulchers beneath the hills, though, and the redcaps have tricks of their own: blood magicked harpies, winged monsters driven half-mad by the berserker ritual, descend on our forces, spiriting away soldiers and even casters to hurl down upon the rocks or to tear apart in mid-air!

The redcaps themselves seem immunized to our berserk arrows, wise to our tricks. They roll our cannons and mobile barricades of silversteel or something similar, and their geomancers erect stone blockades to block our way in to stop the ritual. Only The Iron Lord's drills give us hope of reaching them, but even they are no use until we can reach those sealed entrances to tunnel inside, and far more impressive machines roll down the hill to meet us. With no time to properly mine the battlefield, our options against them are limited; we lose soldiers, hunters, and even mages to their landcraft and their terrible drills and blades.

Kaleb Foster, our loyal spy, has left his wife a widow, and his children fatherless, in defence of their lives and of the Crown.

Things turn desperate. A decision is made, though whether it be by teh council or the mages on the ground is debateable. The Mysterious Stranger's spellcraft is deployed, and the redcaps in their crafts let out screams of pain and horror as their bodies turn against them and explode into elemental chaos within their armoured conveyances. Fully-intact redcap landcraft, filled with lifeless bodies, promise great bounty for our technologists should we succeed in our mission and survive.

And succeed we shall! SURVIVE, we shall! Howling mad lupins lead the charge, leaping the redcap barricades to tear apart their once-venerated false gods. Our men, women, and goblins bring up the rear, bringing the fruits of our research to penetrate the natural fortress our foes erected and fortified. It takes an hour of elemental spellcraft, the sacrifice of captives to fuel it further, and the constant refueling of a half-dozen Remington engines, but we break our way through into the tunnels.

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>>4164164
Once we get inside, it is a bloodbath: scant soldiers stand between us and the blood-priests, and though they are formidable in their dark craft, they have little other talent. Our own blood mages, finally unleashed to their full potential and using their own vitality to fuel our other mages' magic, allow us to flood the caverns with fire and ice, to electrify shields and armour. The redcaps' cannons roar, their blood magic inflicts all manner of sickness, but our warded armour and northern trinkets keep our people on their feet long enough for our healers to do their own counterspell, and we reach the central chamber.

Of the half-dozen men and women who enter that chamber, we cannot speak to their fate. It seals behind them, and by the time our drill-team is able to break through the seal, we find only horror. Against one wall, we see a clue: the burnt-on silhouette of a great, winged man or beast. Laying in the middle of the chamber is Wysard, unconscious and badly-maimed, bleeding from all orifices we care to check; of his unit, we find only blood and scattered, half-melted slag of weapons and armour.

The redcaps, save our prisoners, are gone. Dead, retreated, or else sacrificed to the great beast whose mark we see in their ritual chamber.

And our people... Our people live! We lose 15 men and women, and over two thirds of our remaining forces return home with injuries that may last a lifetime and impede them for months...

But our civilians are all still there to meet them.

A cheer goes up, and a lupin howl follows. We have slain or captured at least six dozen redcaps, ended a ritual, and banished a demon.

Year 5, Month 3 smells of blood,a nd fire, and oil, and steel... But mostly of decisive victory.

[Will post up our next decisions later, after a movie or two with my fiance... If people are feeling it. So, for now...]

Shall we continue?
A. Yes!
B. No, this is a good spot to end off

[If I get at least 3 "A" replies, I'll keep going with next month's options]

>>4164191
>B. No, this is a good spot to end off
Quarantine movies and chill w/ your fiance, this shit can wait. Besides, I'm way too drunk atm to actually make real decisions. (may change vote if others want, but I doubt enough people can)

>>4164233
aaargh I want to keep fighting but that would turn a victory into a draw. I WANT EXTERMINATON...

>B. No, this is a good spot to end off

>>4164233
>>4166237
We'll let it lie for now, then. When people wish to continue, or when I'm feeling like giving it another go, I may continue from this point.

GG, guys!