When I started preparing for the group I thought that there could be four possible starting areas and Saltmarsh was one of them. Saltmarsh is a small village. About the size of Nulb, the village outside the temple of Elemental Evil. It is a days travel from Hommlet and Greysteel by road and a day by small boat from Nulb. The big identifiable feature is the marsh outside of the village, and yes it is salty, because the stream that feeds it travels through a salt deposit. It is on a river and the river is navigable as far as Saltmarsh. For some reason Jardanese are suspicious of rivers…
The Duke thinks that this superstition should end and in addition to the keep he wants you to build, he wants you to build a harbour and a shipwright. He wants trade with the outside world!
There was a watchtower constructed on the hill overlooking the marsh, the river, and the village; it is about 100 years old and has not been lived in for half of that, so it has fallen down. The villagers think that it is haunted!
If you use the Tower on the hill your costs will be lower, but you will need to repair the tower. You can build your keep in the village if you want closer to the workers. If you use the watchtower you will need to build a better road to it. Also, where you build your Fort you will need to build your harbour. Your choice.
When you got to Jarda, you will need to hire people to build your stuff so tell me who you want to hire.
When you petition the Stomida priesthood for help, they offer you the services of a planner and architect. He tells you that the tower will knock off 15k from the price of the construction. Materials are hard to find and the nearest quarry is a week away, but if you loot the Temple of Elemental Evil of stone, you will save a lot of money. New stone will cost you about 15k more money.
You must build a Fort or a Tower and you must also build a harbour and a shipwright to forfill your duties to the Duke. After that you can build a temple to Stomida.
Let me know what and where you want to build.
Village
Fort
Wooden docks
Stone temple
Hey Phil,
The Duke wants you to build a fortification beside the village of Saltmarsh. Probably hopes that a Halforc will terrorize them into paying their taxes… little does he know. He also wants you to build a shipwright and a dock for boats, because he thinks that there may be some trade available along the Water way. You were a sage in your past life and you have seen a map once or twice in your life so you know that the river that the Duke calls Greysteel is actually the Grey Mastekeena River, a small tributary to the very large Mastekeena river basin, that eventually flows into something else thousands of kilometres away. You have seen writings that there is a city that has a million slaves at the mouth of the Mastekeena River where it flows into a river so large that you can’t see across it. Sounds like a myth really. But, even if the city is hundreds of kilometres away and has thousands of people in it, it is bigger than Greysteel, and trade with them would be better than trade with the Duke and his ogre like tax laws.
You start with the building of the shipwright, for selfish reasons, you get them to build a small fleet of shallow barges perfect for navigating the small creek to Nulb and the Temple of Elemental Evil, perfect for looting the temple stone for building the keep near the village and building a new temple to Stomida. The people in Saltmarsh appear to already worship Stomida already. You’re not sure how, but a number of them appear to be wealthier than they appear according to the tax records. The local watering hole has brandy that is not from local sources, the clothing appears to be made from cloth of outside origin too. Odd.
The engineer that you acquired from Jarda let’s you know what you will need in addition to raw materials and sends you to get manpower from Jarda. The city is especially depleted of labourers as some other groups have been building up a storm in Greysteel other than yourself, but lightning does not wait for the thunder so you make another formal request of the Central Temple, it is the prospect of gold that draws workers away from City contracts to you, but if the City of Jarda really wanted to keep those workers, they would have paid them more.
Back in Saltmarsh, the construction begins at last with the foundation of The temple and the Fort. At first things go quickly, but then trouble strikes, the kind of trouble that one gets when they employ a workforce of worshipers of Stomida: pranks. It may have started when you fed them magical beats that turned their urine blue, or it may have been the foreman who moved the strings for the foundation of the temple to make that very very rude word, but soon the construction stopped altogether due to the plague of pranking. All is fun and games until the holy work stops getting done. After that pranking was to be only on rest days, and never on the job site. To this day, no one has confessed to placing itching powder in the latrine clothes…
Everything goes well everything is built and the fields are growing a plentiful crop, the best in years. After a particularly good sermon on the holy Dark day of Stomida, one of your parishioners approaches you and tells you that there is something happening down river. People in the town who have contacts in that part of the river say that the last trading mission sent there has not returned, it is weeks late and that before there were rumours of something big happening that way.
Samo
83, 44, 9, 57, 93, 8 +6
Cavalry veteran Stomida’s Whirling Storm, Human medium d6
Cavalry regular Stomida’s Lashing Wind, Human light d6
x2 Archers regular Stomida’s Hail Slingers, Human light d8
Archers seasoned Stomida’s Lightning, Human heavy d6
Siege Stomida’s Thunder, 1/2 Orc medium d6
And a small ship the Prankster d4
Phil has a mod of 2 and an Alignment mod x3
He has a Keep and a Temple of level 1 so attracts 9 artisans 4 are part of the keep and temple. Carpenter and a priest in the temple, and a captain and a chef in the keep. He also gets a bonus shipwright. The population of his village is already 500, and his attraction number is 310. This number does not exceed the village, so no growth
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