Patch notes:

Cavalry movespeed reduced from 5 to 4

Boat movespeeds increased.

Warship/Dawnbreaker: 4 to 6
Scout: 5 to 8
Hunter: 6 to 9

Thyra given 22 free hexes of movement to compensate and to move this damned thing along.

 

Stories of Lore 14

Our men have made their way to the southern cities of the badlands to pick up the monsters and have started bringing them back. They sent one of the party members ahead with a sign informing people not to be alarmed over the monsters…yet.

 

So far the witches are quarantined…though I feel it might be relevant for me to inform you that their quarantine rooms are in Ansa’s lab. Fortunately her lab is her entire manor so its not like they are uncomfortable. Though KouKou seems scared of Ansa for some reason. Can’t imagine why.

She has also taken over monitoring the refugees and giving some of them jobs working for her. I initially thought she was being nice since Ankathi is her friend, then I realized that I was being silly. She’s keeping them close to her for the purposes of long term study and I am about ninety percent sure at least one of them is going to have something weird slipped into their food within the next year.

Why is it when you request a habitat for the captured monsters my concern is that the next idea you’ll have is to open up a petting zoo? Though Uudistar proves an auspicious location because the Ghuan are there and good at burrowing. The monsters don’t really like the cold, and so the most cost effective -long term at least- solution was to include underground caves in their habitat to keep them cozy.

Also I do not need a horse. I have no intent of leaving Jämsä in the forseeable future and I have other methods of travel that are far superior. I know how to levitate if I’m ever really too lazy to walk.

Aato seems to adjust well to being geared up, I went ahead and just threw every shiny thing we have on him. Best armor, best weapons, best horse, best horse armor. Since he is the most prominent of our commanders in the public eye, I figured it would be good to make him fancy as hell. He is already born to the upper class and puts on a good show of a respectable general. I may have done this partially for show when Eliana gets here.

Iraeka is now on her way east with her team alongside Manhunter. We’ll see what she finds out there. For now they will be taking a ‘don’t be seen’ approach since neither of them are great diplomatically but the whole team is meant to be a bit subtle. I mean lets not forget, Iraeka kind of raped Sakki when they met. Also shot our other ambassador before exchanging any words. If they find anyone we want to talk to, we’ll send someone more talented with words and first impressions. . .
As I review our roster I realize we only have one person qualified for that. So Aato, we’ll send Aato if we want to talk to anyone.

The engineering team won’t really be able to do much with the platform until Nalky gets here as its a weirdly shaped critter and might take some special measuring and designs to achieve that.

Speaking of engineering, Essi has returned and had some ideas based on her field experiments. Largely regarding golems. We’ve managed to come up with some upgrades to the existing ones Katara is using to harvest resources so that has gotten a bit more efficient. But Essi also figured out how to make war golems. It turns out she had Varpu and Eero manifest her design ideas while she was down there to see which ones didn’t immediately fall over on themselves. As well as field testing her existing ones. They’re big hulking monstrosities that can definitely help in a fight but they are a little slow when moving. Not good for chasing, exceptional for sieging though I have to say, or against any enemy that intends to actually fight them rather then run away. They have a high initial construction cost but the maintenance fees are lower then most paychecks so you get a return on investment there. However, they have a quirk. They’re dumb as hell. They need real people with them to command and maintain their groups or they’ll just stand there like idiots.

Greetings Keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi has discovered another piece of land in the southern sea, along with a new small coastal town along his journey.

Konya, Yuzuki, and their retinue have made it to Ahedama to negotiate with Lord Salahe over the matter of the abandoned village. The deal Konya managed to procure is that we can have the village if we pay a 15% tribute from that village’s income to him and he will be stationing his men there. His interest in the village is its position as a border defense location and is more concerned with placing his military assets there for that purpose. He will leave us to colonize it from the civilian standpoint as long as the tribute is paid so the military station he is interested in will be funded. On the upside of that deal, it means the settlement will be well defended without us having to manage its defenses ourselves. On the downside it will be Salahe’s forces so any conflict with him could become very involved.

As a second part of the deal, Salahe intends to register his anirace team’s home field in the area this season dead on top of the meeting point between the three borders near the village. That part wasn’t that big of a deal Konya figured.

The road to Haven has been completed, and people have begun to move to that area. Hopefully we’ll see some results soon.

Also in regards to your question about Faelyn and Salahe, I’m told the general mood is one of regional lords serving the same king. Though if given the chance they’d kill each other to take over their territories and business. The badlands appear to be a little cutthroat. So while they can be described as civil with one another, any hint of weakness and one will destroy the other.

We do have bards around the city I’m sure. They like to hang out at local taverns. I don’t think Kaze can sing though, not that I’ve ever heard him try for that matter.

As for creating the mana lakes, according to Eliana that requires an obscene amount of ecological manipulation, labor, and dumb luck. Adding plants under a lake is maybe 3% of the requirements. The mana lakes in the north occurred because the underdark is its own massive and sprawling ecosystem several times the size of the lakes. It would be easier to create a mana lake by finding a mana rich environment and digging pathways into a man made lake rather then trying to take a lake and building up the area around it.

As for mana production we could try to place a colony on the islands we found to the south. I mean suuure the abandoned docks are ominous but we’ll just stay away from that spot. In particular the highest mana yields tend to come from places near large bodies of water with a lot of life in them. As well as forests and other areas with expansive ecosystems. You will notice Tonarooka and Haokim are significant mana producers, though it was not previously being harvested since their civilizations were small and had little use for it. As infrastructure for harvesting it is implemented they are growing rapidly.

 

So the sickness is getting worse. After Ankathi left they seemed to find a second wind in making our lives difficult. Every prince in the kingdom is dead or will be dead by the end of the month. I advise we make sure Ryo Soo-Yeon doesn’t come home until this is all dealt with. He might be a tiefling but its a bit risky and I kind of like him not dying. He’ll be fine out in the badlands for now anyways.

The civil unrest is also getting out of control with many of the people starting their own cults. Including a faction of wannabe witches who have sided with the spirits and are now acting as sort of domestic terrorists. The guard have dealt with a few of them but we’re aware more are out there. We think they’re being led by a former member of the coven but the bulk of their members are just civilians who have no idea what they’re doing. Meaning there is only one real threat among them.

Petrina has returned to Sybaris to help deal with the matter. She said in these times of  need she is needed here more then managing the small population of Tethalyn and has taken control of the local loyalists. It’s been convenient for us that she happens to be a well known former general of high repute as it has done well to help calm the unrest in general. The regal personality doesn’t hurt either compared to when the people had Ankathi the terrible to look up to. So, some silver lining in all this at least.

When Ankathi left I went to say goodbye to her, and I noticed others she bid farewell to were a bit more upset to see her go. Vanessa and her fifty loyal soldiers have left the kingdom to follow Ankathi.

Cybele has started to lead the slaves of Marilens to Sybaris to avoid the orcish war path, and Christina is on her way down to meet with the druids. I say the druids generally because during war time the archdruid is hard to really locate apparently. She was last spotted near the moving orc parties fighting them still.

Oh and Amare actually managed to recapture Bagrak, despite the opportunity to escape she is still a blind orc in unfamiliar territory being hunted by a druid on home turf. So we have Bagrak back as a prisoner. Amare just dropped her off and then left to go fight the orcs some more.

On the upside, the archdruid’s forces managed to kill another of the orcish commanders and destroy their artifact.

As for the Oda we can negotiate to buy the dawnbreakers from them I’m sure, just at a slight markup most likely just as with the Nalkas armor and weapons.

Thyra has arrived at her destination and picked up the slaves and the dreadnought. She will be on her way back soon.