1/3 Relationships 1 Skill Check 0 Diplomatic Mission
1/1 Relationships 1 Skill Check 1 Military Check
1/1 Relationships 1 Skill Check 1 Exploration Expedition
The Iron Clans had been at peace for generations, resting on an equilibrium that prioritized trade and civil contests to determine the worth of the individual and the respect they were due. The introduction of Steel was the first blow to this system, making the Iron once prized as a memento for honor a mark of shame that one could not acquire the new shining iron and also perhaps more dangerously giving a significant military edge to the clan that acquired them. The second was the notion of gold, the once weak and worthless metal so common to the earth could now be traded with to the Ghosts for Steel, which is to say for honor. Clans once cursed for living above such simple metal now found themselves advantaged over their simple iron brethren.
It was too early to tell what the results of this conflict would be, or even what the sides are, but it is certain that the Iron Clans would never be the same again.
Trade with the clans suffers, and the nascent forts built up along the path between Hampsterdam and the Clans suffer a series of violent raids further destabilizing your merchant route. The shipments of iron come less frequently, but each shipment guarded heavily by loyal guards of
Nanukat . An emissary requests an extension of good faith, more weapons and armor in exchange for more cultural goods of the Iron Clans, with a solemn promise from
Nanukat that the Settlement will be heavily rewarded in the future, and that you personally will be provided with relics of the past that he will have hunted down for you.
The harvest is here, finally a reward to the years of hard work - a chance not only for the settlement to flourish but to support the struggling homeland left choked beneath the ash. It is all that you had hoped and more, your native seeds take to the soil as if desperate for the soft soil so long denied them and the experience your settlers gained from working with the crops of the Mound Keepers combined with the knowledge gleaned from the Iron Clans and the Aelfinn result in tremendous yields. Caravels and merchant ships descend on the settlement like sharks smelling blood in the water, the potential of the North has finally come to fruition.
Unfortunately it is simply impossible for your fledgling state to properly account for, tax, and otherwise appropriate the massive yields of the settlements. You do well, to be sure, and you expect a wealth of resources to flow back into the settlement from Van Myr in the following months, but it is undeniable that vast amounts of gold will be flowing into private hands and the interested parties that pull at their strings.
Julia Herelia Marion wishes to make use of the pooled resources of the Settlement to lay a firm hand on Hampsterdam and its immediate environments, believing that securing the expectation of law in what will be the core of the colonies of paramount concern for a stable future - she is overruled by
Captain Arenna Handt who musters up the support of the leadership council to instead prioritize staffing the many coastal villages, reasoning that while the food may grow anywhere it must eventually travel by ship to be converted into some kind of profit.
Praetor Aelia Nacii benefits from the exploits of
Ajax the Bear-barian and
Joey the Sorcadin with an influx of volunteers, particularly among the ethnic minorities in the refugee population. The fledgling cohesion of the army is tested by both the mix of individuals and the drafting of the military forces into harvest duties.
Praetor Aelia Nacii decides to retain a core of former veterans and work primarily with them, acknowledging the settlements need for capable labor but also the future need for an actual fighting force. She appoints the rapidly rising
Saben Woustel as commander of the force and returned to administrating the drafted recruits.
Spirits rise in Hampsterdam with the harvest and taxes, in the form of crops, are collected with relative ease - the lack of manpower focused on Hampsterdam no doubt allows even the casual thief to abscond with a portion of their crops but all major farmland in the area is accounted for. Further afield you yield fewer successes. The militia and town guard are separated into regional groups to respond to the needs of the collectors, who in many cases are solitary individuals heading off to newly founded communities. In many regions the yield is paid peacefully, but in much lower amounts than even you were expecting. Some settlements outright refuse, not acknowledging any responsibility to Hampsterdam as a their parent settlement. Others claim to fall under the aegis of Meggido, or Ravenwood, with little in the way to prove any such allegiance.
An overeager guard captain operating in the Western plains provokes a minor skirmish, resulting in several injuries and a dead refugee. While the incident itself is fairly minor it becomes a cause celebre of several elements inside Hampsterdam concerned with the rising power of the city itself.
Captain Arenna Handt refuses to submit the guard to any form of punishment, but fortunately the general sense of success with the harvest and the ensuing celebrations defuse the situation peacefully.
In the chaos maneuvers are made but go unnoticed.
Nefeli reports to
Joey the Sorcadin that numerous figures are buying up the least perishable supplies, though the only individual she could finger directly was
Solomon Galway, operating through numerous proxies. She notes that much of the gold he has paid with is minted in the New Carrylean Empire.
The World at Large
Rumors of an insurgent strike at
Sigrun destroying parts of the Ancient Citadel that crests the city inspires local resistance to strike back at the Saggarans. More troubling for the pirate overlords the Carrylean Empire, which had occupied the small colony of Coimbra south of
Sigrun , claims to support the ousted citizens of Sigruns and launches a blockade of the port city. No word escapes the city but it can be imagined that things are not going well.
Word from Carrylean traders is that
Empress Hertegard Van Klanf is launching yet another grand conquest into the nearby swamps in order to exterminate the remaining
Slaari rebels still resisting the dominion of the Children of Mane.
The Claw is rumored, by some of the more unscrupulous members of your sailing community, to have become in all but name independent from the Carrylean Empire, a haven for independent traders and merchants supplying the settlements of
The Discovered Lands . Adventurers from the area claim interesting discoveries along the Clawed Archipelago.
In Meggido the pirate queen
Sapienta, the Jewelled Serpent is rumored to have made port. Her arrival coincides with an increase in missing merchant vessels, though as usual pieces of the ship are found mired with fish guts and other underwater detritus hinting at Sahuagin intervention.
Aleksei Volganov , a prominent nobleman and merchant recently arrived in Hampsterdam, creates the first insurance scheme for shipping around the Penitent Bay in association with several local merchants. They also say that
Caz Dunkel , a commander thought long dead, arrived in Meggido at a similar time.
Traders from Jericho speak of a large fleet sailing from
The Sigil of Mane towards the city, apparently with the blessing of
Graciela Il Voce The Dawning Queen . They do not know the purpose of this fleet but their are rumors aplenty.
The Settlement
The Settlement continues to grow as more and more refugees crowd the docks, fortunately the minor settlements now rimming the Bay and the adjacent coastline start to take in some of the overflow. The newcomers are astounded by the wonders of Hampsterdam, and those with gold to spend frequent the many shops that have popped up to cater to the homesteader looking to make a new start. Those without gold fall in with the many groups willing to help, either the Church of the Fathers, the Blessed of the Leaf, the Refugee Groups, the Van Myr Loyalists, the numerous burgeoning criminal groups, the merchant cartels, or the Town Guard or Militia. The most desperate find themselves sheltering under the Great Grove of Hampsterdam, eating the succulent fruits that fall daily, and sleeping wrapped in blankets of warm moss.
Hampsterdam goes full speed ahead embracing its reputation as a place of danger, excitement, and new possibilities. You continue to attract figures of interest, though many go beneath your notice - of course you also attract dangerous oddities, such as
Dinara , a woman who murders three men in the Qwynn Qasino before making her escape. The town guard are woefully unprepared for any kind of hunt, and must simply admit that they don't have the power to find this, or really any, criminals that aren't absurdly incompetent. In this confusion small scale crime and opportunists find themselves a welcoming home, with several figures staking out major claims unafraid of intervention from the town guard.
The Great Grove and Gardens of Hampsterdam receive significant investment from the town at the behest of
Joey the Sorcadin leading to the construction of several refining facilities adjacent and the tacit endorsement of their existence.
Tennebelt the Alchemist and
Mireen Lusara come to a rather pleasant, and some might say, enthusiastic partnership -
Mireen Lusara brings the practical knowledge of the guild to the experiments of
Tennebelt and they manage to find several potentially usable local threads and plants that can be produced on a larger scale. Several other members of the growing group make smaller discoveries which promise significant interesting yields in the future.
The Qwynn Qasino and Resort continues to expand and dominate the town center, with the loss of the Enclave as a Government Facility the Inn becomes the temporary DeFacto place where business is done - the casual setting is both a boon to those looking to make deals and a bane to sound governance further exacerbating the decentralization of the state and flourishing of those with capital. It also becomes a center for cultural preservation of music, dance, and other nearly lost mementos of the old world, with weekly performances by refugees finding a way to recover their past. This, more than anything, begins to bring together some groups of the settlement, particularly those working in the trades and merchant groups that live near the city core.
Sponsored by
Joey the Sorcadin and brought before the leadership is a plan to create the first Guild of Hampsterdam, lead by
Mireen Lusara .
Captain Arenna Handt is wary of the power of guilds but demures to the decision of
Joey the Sorcadin and it also receives the endorsement of the remaining members, with some legalese tempered by
Julia Herelia Marion . The craftsmen gather together to raise funds for a guildhall a little further off from the city center, where the new Government Complex is planned.
Captain Tork finally returns, a merchant vessel and several smaller local trade ships in tow. The ships are obviously Carrylean in origin, a possible sense of tension going forward. Tork seems unconcerned as he has already put up the flag of Hampsterdam, whatever that is, on the ships. Several merchants, including
Solomon Galway express great concern at this precedent, both at its tacit endorsement of piracy and at the threat of reciprocity from the Carryleans.
"Good, they'll bring more ships and I won't have to go as far to build our navy"
The Iron Federation suffers from the Iron Clan Civil War but manages to stagger onward with the iron gifted from
Ravenwood . Potential investment from merchants is put on hold but the strong community connections are maintained, though the North Woods settlements are increasingly supplying
Ravenwood with their lumber and supplies for immediate returns. The forges remain in use as basic tools are always required and with bronze coming from
The Bone Hills to the South things can proceed as usual.
The miners in
The Bone Hills across the Bay continue to suffer attacks from the Kobolds. Finally the little beasties must have had enough, they collapse the main chute of the mine and perform a massive raid on the settlements. Survivors swear that darkness rode on the creatures back, with screams and claws materializing out of the night. A pocket of resistance formed around a warrior named
Trulka Vrujnern , but they were saved in the end by forces from
Meggido , warmed with Tortle met in their bellies, who marched across and liberated the settlers under the command of
Caz Dunkel .
Of Gods and Monsters
Religion sours the settlement once more as the Blessed of the Leaf proclaim
Venevia Sil Galachus the Grovekeeper of the Great Grove of the Fathers at Hampsterdam. The ceremony invokes the many tenets of the Fathers but with references to the Lord of the Woods as the One True Father and a lot of emphasis on this land being the True Garden.
Lars Skellrich leads a contingent of the faithful to protest the event, bearing weapons - the guards are forced to defend the Blessed of the Leaf and some blood is spilled. Popular sentiment is split, with many being undeniably drawn to the new religion with its evident powers, nourishment of the hungry, and reintrepation of classical dogma - others see it as a barbaric heresy and a symbol of what is wrong with this settlement.
The many small trees spread by the Blessed blossom just as suddenly as the Great Grove, forming similar fruit-bearing trees all throughout the settlements. Reaction is.... mixed. In some places new Grove Keepers are annointed and the faith spreads, in others the trees are met with fire and axe, torn down. The stories of what occurs what this occurs are... confusing, they speak of haunted whispers and red flamed eyes in the dying roots beneath. In settlements to the SW a group lead by
Gareth Nemens slaughters 7 members of the Blessed of the Leaf, blaming them for cursing local livestock. Meanwhile another "ambassador" of the faith is killed while attempting to plant a tree in
Ravenwood , who promptly write a scathing letter to the Leadership asking that their cult be restrained. The reaction throughout Hampsterdam is explosive, with several people injured.
"Here in his land you cannot take from the Father what is his"
Venevia Sil Galachus , beneath the Great Grove, was the victim of an attempted assassination by several mercenaries. Witnesses report that the tree itself defended her, rending two of the mercenaries with thorns and the third... was transformed into something horrific that tore into its allies. Several of the witnesses fainted and are "disturbed."
Meanwhile a new group has become popular on the coast of the Penitent Bay, they call themselves the Penitents and wear the garb of Shepherds. They apear to be lead by a figure named
Lasila Vianova .
Other Events
Fabia Ludus , rescued during
The Mis-Adventures of Joey the Sorcadin , arrives back at
The Settlement eager to see her companion
Dane . When she talks to him, her eyes widen, she advances, grabbing the knife from his belt, and stabs it into his side. She is quickly restrained but she shouts "You're not him, you're one of them" she seems hysterical "ONE OF THEM". She is taken away and restrained, where she calms down and tells you her story.
Dane survives, but you notice that he seems different... he seems bored by being stabbed, he seems bored, or even more, boring - lacking the fiery passion that he brought with him when he first arrived. Those who tend to him look concerned, reporting that several other people have reported their loved ones or friends behaving similarly in recent weeks.
"Let me tell you what I saw when those things had me in their lair"
A group of peacekeepers arrive, a development looked upon with great anger by the refugees - they bring with them an official missive from
King Mago and the High Dukes.
Renfred the Lark tells tales of
Joey the Sorcadin visiting the city of Sigrun to hushed crowds as well as expounding on the many stories of your adventures, which come to be known as the Tales of the Guardians to be spread far and wide.
The vanishings continue about the outer regions of the settlement, as well as the strangely visceral murders while in the northwest a few distant farms are attacked and burned. Banditry remains rampant but their are rumors of a small band of adventurers who have been taking up random contracts to help locals.
Strange Dreams plague the settlements, shared by most people. Their origin is unknown.
Letters
An envoy from the King of Van Myr -
Royal Dictate : Colony Governance
Comments