Election 2019 Canada

This election has me terrified.

The last dozen elections I have mostly voted for the environment.  Last federal election I swallowed and voted for the NDP—because voting Liberal was too much of a betrayal of my core beliefs; I can't do it this year too, there is too much at stake.

It's the environment, Stupid!

The environmental projections for the policies of the four major national parties was just released.  The Conservative Party was the worst, they plan to scrap the Carbon Tax and rely on incentives for businesses to update their systems. The Liberal Party will stay the course with the Carbon Tax and this will allow a 12MT reduction over the Conservatives.  The NDP will keep the Carbon Tax, scrap pipelines, and remove government subsidies from Oil Producers, and this will reduce Carbon by a few more MT than the Liberals.  In 2030, they will be far above the target they all promised to hit from the Paris Accord.  The Green Party is projected to meet and exceed the targets set for 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.  The gulf is about 200MT. They want to ban imports of oil, end pipelines and begin switching the economy over to renewable energy sources.

There is a recession coming, the Americans under Trump have been trying to tank the world economy in three years and are doing an awesome job, so you know as soon as that recession hits, every government will begin telling people that now is not the time to be environmentally friendly.  I say a recession is the best time to switch over.

The other thing is the only reason why I would consider voting liberal last time was that he said he would bring in Electoral Reform.  He bailed on it of course. Electoral Reform would mean the end of Majority governments, until they were good enough to actually get more than 50% of the support of people; they can't, so they didn't.  Now there is a possibility that the Liberals or the Conservatives will win a majority with less than 34% of the popular vote and if this happens, I WILL RIOT!  I don't know where, but I will. 

Girlfriend, Natural20, says that if the conservatives win the most seats but not a majority, it will be the best thing, because the Liberals would need the support of the Greens and the NDP, but I don't see it that way.  I see it as the Liberals will need the support of the NDP and the Bloc Quebecios, and maybe the Greens.  And I see the conservatives ramping up the troops like they did in the early 2000s when the left tried to do it then, saying that making a deal with the Bloc was making a deal with the Devil.  They held on to power with that corrosive rhetoric until the Liberals caved.  Liberals, enough liberals might cross the floor to give the Conservatives their Majority.  

How could I say that?  The Liberals and the Concervatives paint each other as angels and demons, but the gulf between them is not as great as it is between the liberals and the NDP, the Bloc and certainly, the Greens.  Which is why Electoral reform is so needed, but sadly, this is more likely than what we really need, a radical change in Environment policy.  Ripping the bandaid of carbon production off thirty years ago would have hurt, but it would have been over.  Doing what is needed today will be like getting thrown down an embankment, because we will need to make much harsher moves now to prevent drastic climate change.  In another four years, if nothing is done it may be too late, but we will have to make changes that will be like getting hit by a car, deep sudden changes that may kill the patient, but possibly leaving them injured for a long time.

Everytime we delay making the changes needed, the changes we need to make become more extreme, because the less extreme measures won't do anything anymore.

Transition to Green

Transition they say.  They need time to transition.  They need time to transition from Fossil Fuels to the Green Economy.  How much time?  

The answer is almost no time is needed.  

Canada.  Four provinces produce almost all their power from clean sources: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Newfound.  Three of those are the most populous provinces.  Three of the remaining provinces receive more sunlight and are windier than the rest of the country.  Two of those three provinces are littered with holes that reach the warmest parts of the Earths Crust, meaning they are prime locations for geothermal power.  The remaining three Provinces are on the coast and therefore get a lot of wind all year long. One of them gets the one of largest tides in the world so tidal power is a possibility.  

Solar is the fastest type of energy to build, you just need a solar panel and a place to put it and then plug it in.  Wind power, you need to build a tower first.  Geothermal you need to dig a hole to the hot stuff, preferably to temperatures of 400°C and then you need to build a steam power plant.  The temperature really only needs to be above 100°C but I have an idea that if it is hotter it is better.  Nuclear power plants take a decade to build.  Same with hydro, but most large projects have already been completed, because they are the easiest things to build, so most of them are already built.

Complaints:

The sun only shines during the day:  most of the power used in a 24hour day is used when the sun is shining.

Cloud cover limits power production: rare is the day that clouds cover all parts of a province, spread out the solar power plants, put the excess in batteries and use when the sun is not shining.

The wind does not blow all the time: it blows most of the time at higher elevations, ie up a tower.  The wind blows mostly at night, it blows mostly in winter too.  So, when the sun is not shining, the wind is usually blowing.

Nuclear waste is a problem, but it is not as big a problem as the alternative.  It does not produce mountains of waste like coal ash does.  It is a problem, but we need to tackle this problem right now.  In any case, we are not going to use nuclear for a huge chunk of power anyway.

Electricity from one source of fossil fuel  has always been a problem; generation was dependent on the price of the fuel.  Moving to multiple sources with battery backup is the best solution.  We use most of our power when we are awake.  Less power when we sleep.  We need to build a system that produces a background level of electricity equal to the minimum power used during the day.  The background energy requirements will be fueled with electricity from Hydro, Geothermal, and Nuclear.  We can't change production amounts to these type of plants easily, energy lags greatly between surplus and deficit.  Wind and Solar power can fill in the gaps, producing as much energy as it can when it can.  The part of the system that makes it all work is a system of batteries.  The batteries charge when there is excess energy and they provide power when there is a deficit.  They can switch between the two states on a second by second basis, meaning little or no brown outs.  

Moreover, if our provinces are linked, if the power requirements of the nation are linked, there will be greater resilience in the system.  If we treat North America as one system, then the resilience of the system strengthens more so.  

What is stopping this transition?  People are not building green power technology.  Collectively, we know how to do it, but fossil fuels are subsidized and therefore cheaper.  Remove the subsidies, or better yet move them to green power technology and we will quickly be there.  

Green cars.  We have the technology, but governments are not interested in them.  Electric cars are expensive, because gas powered car makers have a lot of pull and electric ones no pull.  Stop it.  Stop building Gas powered vehicles.  The car companies know it will happen, they are preparing the way now, but we need to tell them that the end is now!  Not in five years.  

Realistically, transition will hurt some people a lot, but realistically not transitioning will hurt almost everyone a lot more soon.  

If fourteen year old Greta Thunberg could see that two years ago as clear as day, why can't we?  

Transitioning is not the problem.  The problem is understanding that it is necessary now.  Well, necessary ten years ago, but now is the best we can hope for.  

Carbon Neutral by 2050 is a joke, we need to be Carbon Negative as soon as we can.

Brown Face: the lie

So the news this week has been mostly centered on the election and on the Prime Minister and his past where he dressed up in Brown Face and Black Face.  Dominated.  Everywhere around the world.

Black Face and Brown Face were serious things in their day.  It was when a white person would dress up and a Native person, a Black person or a Chinese person to entertain white people and make fun of the assumed culture.  No actors of the given races were availible, or more likely, they were not allowed to act.  Or when they did they were given roles that were insults.  The Lone Ranger's Native sidekick was named Tonto, for slow or stupid.  So, clearly when white people don the guise of another race and don the colour of their skin, this is a bad thing when there is no context.  

The position that I have to take as a white person is that it was an unconscionable act, in the least very stupid.  And because I am white the feeling is that, I Must, say that it is wrong.

Natural20 is Indian, that is her cultural base is from India, and she thinks it was stupid but does not hold it against him.  She holds other things against him like Election Reform and other important issues.  She said it like this: he was at a costume party and it was themed and he dressed as Alladin and he took it too far, but after appropriating the dress and everything else, coloring his face was just a minor step to complete his image.  Then she chuckled, as no Indian would ever want to be that dark, they all want to be light skinned.  

Half the responses on the internet, I say half, but in reality it was more like 90% of the ones I saw, seemed to exonerate his behavour from 18 years ago saying, that his actions in the years following the incident bely any perceived insult by dressing Brown Face.  The people in his school where the insult was perpetrated felt that he had given no offense at the party and that his context, meaning he as the type of teacher he was, no one thought he was doing anything racist at the time or since.  The people thought he took his role beyond what was necessary, but it was not meant to make fun of any culture.

That said, I am white and some would say that I am just defending my tribe.

And are they?  The Liberal party was quick to move on, but e Conservatives and the other parties were not.  The Conservatives were a little two faced, they emphasized the event to the press and admitted that they had dug the photos up to be used during the election, but in private memorandum to party members made no mention of this incident.  Did that mean that they did not really care?  The other parties, the green and the NDP held the photos more strongly.  The NDP, the only leader of a party that is a minority, a brown faced minority at that, is not eager to forgive, certainly not publicly.  The Greens with the only female leader, which is a different sort of minority, stated that they thought that this was a distraction from important issues.  They were not saying that racism was not important, they were saying that in the face of climate destruction, everything pales in importance.  The People's Party of Canada, also right wing, seemed to say that the liberals were racists just like them, but their leader was hiding it better.  

So.  It comes down to this: the polls suggest that the Liberals have 37% of popular vote, Conservatives, 34%, Greens 10%, NDP 9% and the PPC 5% and 4-5% undecided.  What this is all about is 1-2% of the vote.  With 5 parties, 3% of the vote is the difference between a majority government and a minority government.  In a post electoral reform election, this poll would mean a minority government with the Left wing parties supporting the Liberals.  But in that absence, it is about moving the conservatives up 3% and moving more people to the Greens and the NDP. 

Listen.

37% is enough for a overwhelming majority with 4 parties.  With 5 parties it is also as likely.  If the Liberals lose 3% to the Greens and NDP but the Conservatives maintain their 34% it becomes more likely a minority government.  But it is not certain. Nothing is certain.  The Right amounts to 39% of the vote and the Center 37%, the Left 19%.  In our electoral system 37% can be a majority or a minority.  

I have not looked into many of the policies of the parties, but I know the Conservatives, they speak nice words but have hidden agendas and their actions make their words lies.  The Liberals are Conservatives with a conscious, which means they mean the nice things they say, but they don't say what they mean: they are an old party that is used to the revolving door of Canadian politics, sweeping to power for a decade then switching with the conservatives for another decade: they believe this is how the world works and it is a game.  They are wrong.

American Politics: a perception

I have said before that my awakening to world politics was the Iran Iraq war, but other things were occurring at that time too.  The 40th president of the United States was elected at that time too.  He was an actor, which was thought to be odd at the time, I had not seen any of his movies and he had been retired from movie making all of my life, but he was an actor.  A lot of today's politics is said to come from his time.  He gave the church more powers and set the path for the country to become a theocracy.  He also nearly started WWIII, and he oversaw the fall of the 'Evil Empire' of the Soviet Union.  He saw the Berlin Wall come down too.  He was the first President who had dementia in office.  He was shot, someone tried to kill him.  And he started the Star Wars initiative, trying to arm space; that is what almost started WWIII.  And he had no qualifications to hold the office of president; he was an actor.  Just looked him up, he was also the governor of California for eight years, probably the reason why I never saw him act.   

He was also the first president to tie the Republican party to religion and that also tied the political system to a partisan system.  It was always a partisan system, there were usually only two choices us and them, but in his years it started to go down the road of this is a good policy if we do it, but if they do it, it is a bad policy.  For an example, when the President had people break in to the oppositions head quarters in the 70s, he resigned because his own supporters thought he did a bad thing.

Fast forward to today, we, the world, has an American President that is allowed to do illegal acts every day because the opposition knows that it can pass censure on him because the President's Party controls one of the two houses in government, and they know that that party will shut down any bill that casts their president, their party in a poor light.  

The Democratic Party did something four years ago, and the Republican Party decried it and pronounced it as "Evil", but now, circumstances are different; they can do the same thing except ten times worse and it is a good thing, Holy even.  It is not just one thing, it is everything.  Having extra marital affairs, imprisoning children, wearing a tan suit, loading the supreme court with morally questionable people, more and more and more.  Too many to count too much that it is all rolling in to one.  

But the big one is Obstruction of Justice, in other words getting involved in court cases or legal proceedings to influence the decisions.   

Using the office to personally enrich himself.

Hypocrisy.  I know, everyone thinks that this is a defining trait for all politicians, but really that is unfair.  In this case I mean instances where the president rails against things that he has personally taken advantage of multiple times.  

Changing the language.  Fake news: news that you don't agree with is fake, except fake literally means untrue, not real.  

Illegal Immigrants as a synonym for refugees or asylum seekers: quite literally the opposite meaning refugees and asylum seekers are people who would rather have stayed in their own country but can't and still live, they are not immigrants in the traditional sense, and it is completely legal to seek asylum.  The problem as I see it is these people are poor and have no political power, which is part of e reason why they are refugees, if they were wealthy or had power in their own countries they would not have to flee.  The other thing is he has fixed the idea that refugees are all criminals.  When ever the President talks about refugees, he never says refugees by-the-way, he says illegal and criminals instead.  He refused refugees from Hurricane Dorian, because he said they were criminals.  Criminals who had lost their homes and families in a storm and were trying to find a place to stay until they could rebuild and sought the closest country to them.

Hinting that it is time for the US to become a dictatorship.  

And that last one is it, the most troubling thing.  In 2016 when the election was called, Trump had a speech prepared how Hillary had used illegal means to win the election, had rigged the election, but he won and had to make up a new speech. 

This time, after he has disenfranchised the vote from so many people, if he loses, he may not choose to accept the results.  He may call on his supporters to rise up.  And if they do,there will be war.  

Speaking of war.  Recent wars where the US was involved in: the break up of Yugoslavia, Syrian civil war, the Libyan Civil war were during the Democratic Party, they were all coalition wars or UN wars.  The Persian gulf war, the invasion of Somalia, the invasion of Afghanistan, the US-Iraq war, possibly the US-Iran war (it looks likely) all were republican administration wars.

This would not matter as much to me except that it appears that Canada is getting dragged into a similar partisanship in its politics too.  And I fear it, dread it. 

Refining a setting For D&D 5e Caranus plus ideas

Geography of the East Bank

There are two notable features.  The Mountains, called many different things to different people.  They extend beyond the distance that anyone can expect to travel to the South and to the North.  To the East they remain without pass and reach far into the sky, most of the peaks are too high to climb and are all covered with ice even during the longest summers.  There are many valleys in amongst the peaks where Giants, Elves and dwarves dwell, but most of the dwarves live under the mountain in pursuit of wealth.  The River, known as the Great River, as it is the largest river anywhere.  At times, boats sailing in the middle of this river have lost their way because they could not see the edges of the river; when the river floods this is a quite common experience.  The river moves across the landscape like a giant snake's curves move as it goes forward, erasing civilizations as it does so.  Cities that had direct access to the Great River for a century have been left alone a week's journey overland from it, almost overnight.  The fringes of the river are the most fertile lands anywhere.  The river floods in an intricate schedule based on the little year and the long year; the melting of the snows in the mountains cause local flooding, the tropical rains in the extreme north send floods southward in the long summers, but the peak of those floods arrives this far south many months after the rain first fell.  The western side of the mountains seems to reap a bountiful harvest of rain and snow throughout the year from the weather sweeping off the great plains of Caranus.

To the South is the Earldom of Causnought, a city that is based at the western eaves of Gwendyl Wöse the Elven Kingdom that gives its name to the forest therein.  Causnought is on a surprisingly stable river that flows through that forest to the Great River.  Up until a generation ago it was a small insignificant city of survivors from other failed cities in the region.  They farmed and traded with the elves and the outside world.  This changed recently as an enterprising clan of dwarves opened up trade with the Empire and the city through Gwendyl Wöse.  

Gwendyl Wöse is an ancient forest.  It is a temperate rainforest with trees that are thousands of years old with a lofty city of Hight Elves, set in the natural boughs of the trees.  Magic keeps the winters milder, the rain falls cold but it rarely snows.  The roots of the trees the forest is wild with thick dense bush that makes passage through the lower regions almost impossible except to the Wild elves that live there.  In the extreme east of the forest the forest climbs the mountains and the magic of the forest fails, the scant population of elves here are mountain elves.  Most of the elves that live here are Wild Elves, they are nearly xenophobic preferring to keep to themselves; High Elves are more diplomatic, but compose only a quarter of the population.  They trade with outsiders and travel further afield when they are young but invariably return after a few years.  The Mountain Elves are the vast minority on the land, living in the East, they make up a twentieth part of the elves here, but their extended community includes all the Mountain elves of the area a number equal to all the elves in Gwendyl Wöse.  

Trandle's Stand was built of the refugees of another city that fell to the Great River in a Thousand Year Flood.  The town was built with a paranoia of flooding close in mind.  All the larger buildings have their entrance on the second floor and this includes all the warehouses.  This is a reaction to the downfall of the previous city, who boasted that it was flood proof, whose walls were higher than the highest flood that there ever was, which served the city until that statement was no longer true.  The city of is ruled by the heads the family guilds in a complex calculation based on the profitability of the guild; the wealthiest guilds make the rules.  

The Free City of Dhewtudum is the most recent failed city.  It was an outpost for the nascent Dwarven Empire where the wares of the Empire were traded for goods that the Empire desired.  When the city fell twenty-five years ago to the predations of a massive Red Dragon.  The city was built on the foundations of a volcano long dormant, thought to have been dormant for dozens of thousands of years, and last year became active.  The clouds of smoke was visible even to the City of Gutral Mastekeena, and the pyrotechnic display seen over the horizons.  The wealth of generations of dwarves lies still in the hoard of that dragon.  

Gutral Mastekeena is on the other side of The Great River.  Although it has been in existence for over two thousand years, it has never attempted to expand to this side of the river.  

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Overall, the climate of this area is complex.  The latitude is about 50° South, so over the course of the 24 year long cycle it has the weather similar to central British Columbia, with more rain.  Lots of rain, similar to the west coast of British Columbia, but with more extreme temperature swings.  This is what the weather is like in the Autumn and Spring periods.  The Winter years are more like the Yukon, with more rain, something like a region at latitude 75° with shorter days of Winter as opposed to the longer days that that latitude receives In their summer.  The Summer period receives the length of day similar to 50° latitude, but with the intensity of 25° latitude.  Basically, the day length varies in winter from 8 hours to 16 hours in Summer, and the suns are lower in the sky in the winter too, and higher in the Summer.

Additionally, the river rarely freezes over.  Partly that is because the river is moving, but also it is because the water it carries is from warmer climes, which means while there is a lot of snow, it is wet snow and the closer to the river the more it is likely to be rain.

History of the East Bank

The feel of this region is that it is old, very very old.  In the areas that don't flood traveling across the plain appears simple and expedient, but can be dangerous if not done with the minimal care.  One is likely to trip over a wall that has been overgrown by a centuries growth or could it be a wall from and ancient town from a thousand years ago, or a city from ten thousand years ago.  This area has been continuously inhabited for the past ten thousand years, perhaps twice that and there are rumors that it was inhabited by the First Ones before that.  Still, the river has done a great job at erasing many of those cities.  

The areas around The Great River are all new.  The age of the ground in the flood plain is measured in months on the surface and possibly years at greater depths, some portions might be as old as a century, but that is as old as the land gets.  The River turns and twists, forms Oxbow lakes.  It floods and the silt erases all the landforms made since the last flood.  The people on the floodplains live in silted huts that can float when they need to.  The land is rich and plants grow thick here.  Crops grown in this soil can feed nations, nay, empires.  Harvesting the crops is the hard part.  The flooding is difficult to predict and errors mean crop loss.  Crops like rice flourish in the wet and often produce bumper crops.  Fish, waterfowl, frogs and many other animals flourish here too and the people eat them all.  There is no nation in the river.  There are no cities in the river.  No empire lays claim to it, only the River Elves can reall saw to live in it.  

The have been a great many cities along The Great River over the years, many still stand on its banks, but the majority of all the cities are in ruins.  Recently, Dhewtudum fell to a Dragon of immense power, and since the dragon still sleeps there, no one has ventured that way in a score of years.  Stuj, the next to most recent tragedy in this area, fell victim to hubris and its mighty walls that were said to be impregnable to the River, were breached during an unimaginable flood.  The victims remain within the walls, tales of intelligent dead controlling the streets keep all but the fool hardy from attempting to scale it's walls; the truth claims them.  Stuj fell not a century ago.  

Gladen fell when the access to The Great River failed.  Canals were dug out to the River and the life of the city was maintained, but the fickle river swung close again and destroyed the work of decades in a year and then swung out a hundred kilometers to the West a few years later taking the trade with it.  The people left and formed the base for the city of Causnought.  All the stones that built that city were taken from that ruin, built in its shadow shy by three hundred years.  

The stone of that city came from another, the Great city of Awsland, located due west of Dhewtudum.  That city was a great site that had no desire to be a city, but the keep a master Rogue that scoured the region of many treasures and set up a keep just to hold his wealth, the city came about later.  The original purpose has been left in obscurity for generations of elves, but it is known that the core of the city, the seed was a contemporary of Gutral Mastekeena.  The fall of the city was hundreds of years ago, and the raising of Gladen was done with the stone of Awsland.  

All those cities earned the majority of their wealth with trade with the Empire in the Dwarven Lands.  Dhewtudum, the trading city of the Dwarven Empire has been there that long and more, but perhaps the secrets of these ruins can lead to knowledge to free the wealth from the Dragon's Hoard?

@$@$@$@$@$@$@$@$@$@$@$

Recent history

The dragon came without warning.  The dragon arrived in the dark just after midnight on the darkest longest night mid winter.  The dragon came with an army that had encircled the city in secret.  When it struck it was with fire that melted the citadel in minutes.  Those that fought, died.  Those that fled died.  Only one in ten that fled were successful, only one in a hundred had that chance.  Most of the survivors of the city were not in the city at the time of the attack.  For every citizen who fled the attack successfully, two others were able to flee the carnage in the aftermath.  A total of 6500 survived a city of half a million.  Most were Empire Dwarves and they fled to the Empire, but the rest were of a smattering of every other race nearby.  

The invasion occurred not long ago, six months.  The countryside near the ruin of Dhewtudum was one night filled from nowhere with thousands of kobolds.  Where they came from became clear only in the aftermath, but where they came from was no matter to whom they attacked.  Villages and towns were destroyed farms were pillaged and people murdered from the fringes of Gwendyl Wöse, Causnought, Trandle's Stand and the very edges of the mountains thought to the edge of The Great River, nothing was left untouched. Some notable places were left intact like lucky buildings in a tempest, heroes were born protecting villages, heroes died unsung more often.  

Afterwards, the countryside breathed at last when the suns rose over the mountains that morning and the survivors came together.  Many of the towns had no survivors, a few had some.  The cities with steady patrols fought the invaders and pushed them back, some ground was lost but the people woke to the dangers of a dragon neighbour.  The question was who was going to make the next step.  

Adventure areas:

Politics in Tradle's Stand (low level and higher level possible)

The Ruins of Stuj (mid to high level)

The Ruins of Awsland (low level to mid level)

The Ruins of Gladen (low to mid level)

Find the treasures of Awsland hidden for a thousand years, leads to a missing stone with inscription in Gladen.  They found a portion of the inscription in a building in Causnought, that was scavenged from Gladen.  The inscription when read in the temple in Awsland opens a crypt to treasures lost for a thousand years that include maps to the treasury of the kings of Gutral Mastekeena, a hidden vault in the mountains, and a riddle about a powerful weapon that can control/destroy dragons.  Then the players have a real quest, to fight and defeat the dragon.  And they must do it before the Dragon's forces wipe out the region completely.

/-/-/-/-/-/

What makes the Characters, the Player Characters special?  It is the question.  It has been the question since the start of D&D.  There was an answer back in the day, when The World of Greyhawk released a setting update.  It was called Wars.  It described a world that was torn up by a few large wars that drew in all the people's of the setting.  Several countries disappeared, some got bigger, some shrank and one broke up.  And it was based on the premise that certain adventures were never played and events progressed with out the PCs.  There was one adventure that if played and was completely successful, the events of several parts of the wars would have changed a lot and reversed even.  It was an interesting idea.  

Other roleplaying games failed on this level, the players really did not mean anything to the setting and there was nothing that could be done about it.  

So, how do you make your players feel that they are noticeably affecting the way the world runs?  One way is to make them a part of a large project that people are depending on.  Another way is to have the characters stumble upon greatness, that adventure that they just completed was key to a villain's overall plan and thus are now world players.   

4-6 first level people are not really worth noticing.  A group of 4-6 people that have come off a string of victories, who are 5th level, are noteworthy people and together represent a force that is equal to a noble in a nation and are ready to get missions from the leaders of the nation or large companies/guilds.  More successes, or even an impressive defeat may set up their renown and lead to better things, they might be 7th-10th level, they together are as powerful as a king.  They will get missions that impact the nation and further.  Missions that affect Nations.  By the time 4-6 reach 20th level they should be a power in themselves, perhaps they set up nations or more, bring other nations to their knees?

In the adventure above, the fight against the Dragon of Dhewtudum, the characters might very well reach greater than 20th level, perhaps 30th level, if they do that, they might just set themselves up as rulers of the East Bankand form a nation South and North from The Great River to the Dwarven Empire and lead armies South and North and expand into a great empire, because they are Great People alone, but together they are more.

The history of Gutral Mastekeena

I appologise if I have posted this before, but I went looking for it and could not find it and I thought is would be a shame if I lost this permanently

Gutral Mastekeena

Has stood on the banks of the Great River for centuries beyond the oldest memories, indeed, millennia.  It's line of rulers stands as a long unbroken chain directly to the gods, so it is said.  The Palace of the Immortal Emperor, stands central to the city, is said to contain a room for every year of the empire, over ten thousand rooms, it is said.

•  There are laws in the in the nation that all statues must be no greater than half the height of a principal statue of the Immortal Emperor and that no statue can be anyone other than a reigning king, only one statue of each king is allowed.  

•  The statue of the Immortal Emperor, of which there is only one, may have grown over the years in height as building technology allowed it to an magic evolved to improve it, and to accommodate taller statues of the current king.  

•  There is a rigid Caste System in the Empire.  The Emperor, his King and the King's Children are at the top.  Citizens are next, membership is granted to all those that serve in the military for ten years, not their children.  The next Caste are the Warriors, they are the ones that lose their caste and enter this one.  Next Caste are those that labour, the children of Citizens.  The last Caste is the slaves.  

•  The rights of the various castes are complex.  The ruling Caste is almost immune to all laws, except those of treason, which is loosely defined by the Emperor on a case by case situation.

•  Standard laws of most nations apply to citizens.  But they may only inherit from citizens.  Meaning that only if their children has had ten years military service when they die, will they inherit.  Only Citizens can own land.  Only citizens can purchase land.  Only Citizens may leave the Empire and return as Citizens.  Only citizens may bear arms.

•  Workers are considered owned by Citizens, until children attain citizenship, they are Worker Caste.  They are labourers and may keep the fruits of their labour, they pay taxes, but they can never own anything like a building or land.  This means they rent these things from Citizens or from the Ruling Caste.  They are beholden to a Citizen and they pay them to continue to exist.

•  Slave Caste are the lowest caste.  They are owned by the Ruling Caste exclusively.  They form the bureaucratic labour force and the public works workforce.

•  Any Caste is allowed into the Warrior Caste.  Few want to join the Warrior Caste.  The attrition rate is over fifty percent in the first year of service and fewer than one in four leave the Caste as Citizens, but there are good reasons why people want to enter military service, most urgently so they can inherit and so they are not made Slaves to the Emperor upon their Citizen benefactor's death.  Warrior Caste members are grilled with a training regime that makes them potent warriors and completely loyal to the Emperor alone.  

• The Caste System of Gutral Mastekeena is part of the reason why it has survived millennia, virtually impervious to internal rot and strife as only those completely loyal to the Emperor have the right to bare arms and the right to own land and inherit.  This applies to the Ruling Caste as well.  Upon the death of the current king, of his progeny the Emperor selects the most worthy successor and they are made King.  All other children are made slaves, unless they have attained Citizenship or joined the Warrior Caste.  

• Any Worker Caste who leaves the confines of the Empire, returns as a slave.  Any Citizen who leaves the Empire for longer than a decade must renew their Loyalty Oath or be enslaved.  The Empire has been growing for most of its existence 

The Immortal Emperor is the ruler of the Empire, but all worldly and temporal concerns are handled by the King, who is drawn from the numbers of children of the last king.  The most worthy member is selected by the Emperor and placed on the throne, the rest of the children are released to their lives as citizens or made slaves of the state.  The most worthy then produces as many heirs as they can produce, and those heirs produce as many children as they can produce and so on until the current king dies and the process begins again.  The criteria for selection of the next king are complex, in theory all children and grandchildren are eligible, but in practise the Emperor chooses the most capable.  The Emperor will select a Citizen over all others, next a Warrior and lastly a worker; in theory the Immortal Emperor could select a slave, but this never has happened.  Citizens have had ten years of military service and are by definition devotedly loyal to the Emperor.  (Surviving 5 years involves a ceremony overlooked by the Emperor, and an oath giving service.  Those that reach ten years of service the Oath becomes binding, not all oath givers survive the ceremony.)  while in the past the King has been raised from Merchant Citizens, in practise the king is raised from the most powerful progeny.  The second quality the Emperor looks for is number of progeny birthed and social status of them.  Typically the age of the new king is younger and not older and the average life expectancy of a king is in excess of forty years.  Marriage is not something kings do, indeed only after the a new king is selected do his sibling relatives marry.  Until then, any Slave or Worker can be conscripted into their harem, and any citizen can become a consort upon negotiation.  

The Empire spans almost the length of the tributary of the Great River sits and many of the minor tributaries a month's travel up and down the Great River.  The tributary Mastekeena is many thousand of kilometers long and it is navigatable for most of its length.  Many of its tributaries are navigatable for hundreds of kilometers.  The stated goal of the Empire is to dominate all the lands where the water flows through its Capitol; despite its age and size, it is still many generations from accomplishing this goal.  More than once has there been times when portions of the empire have ceded themselves from the Empire; when it occurs they are not mentioned in the history books.  On occasion the far thinking and planning Emperor sets up nations further than the boarders of the Empire to create means of assuming control of larger tributary nations.  Sometimes, groups of like minded dissidents are exiled far from the Empire sometimes revolts occur and portions of the empire cede from it.  One such rebellion did occur about fifteen hundred years ago.  Since that time, the Emperor has instituted policies that ensure this never happen again, primarily redistributing new lands to new citizens, and enslaving the population and forcing them into the Warrior Caste and redistributing the resulting Citizens far from their home territory.  

The rebellion that caused this draconian policy was not successful.  The slaves and workers in the rebellion were lead by a group of warriors that had yet to become citizens who were from this region, but for every soldier they killed, ten rebels died and when the resulting blood bath was done, the rebellion was over and every defected Warrior caste was executed for treason and all the rest were enslaved to work the mines or labour in more dangerous locales as a lesson to all.  But, not all the people were dealt with in such a clean manner.  Several thousand people escaped the fighting and headed as far away from the Empire as they could.  They were pursued and most of them were captured and killed.  Moreover for another three generations the armies followed the path of the refugees conquering this lands until the Empire had covered half the remaining extent of the navigatable Mastekeena River. One group got away and with that group the remaining heritage of the nation that was destroyed.  They settled over one hundred km further than the furthest point of the navigatable river.  There they grew in the wilderness amongst the bones of an empire that was long dead before the first stone was laid in Gutral Mastekeena.  

The first building they built was a shrine to the god that they revered, Jard.  The village that they set up they named after the same god, Jarda in hopes that all their actions would be righteous.  The first year of their new life was difficult; they were on the verge of starvation for most of it until they were greeted by a company of forest elves.  The settlers were not familiar with this type of elf and they were cautious, but their hunger outweighed many of their concerns and the elves brought them sustenance.  They quickly became friends and later allies.  The region was the home to a large number of nonhuman tribes including a great many Orc nations.  The Elves sought an alliance.  

The alliance of the Elves and Jardanese grew to include other friendly groups in the area, gnomes, halflings, and a few desperate groups of dwarves over the next few centuries.  The histories of their origins were documented by the elves and preserved without bias and it was because of this that the people knew when traders coming up the river brought news of the expanding Empire. They realised that it was only a matter of time before the empire expanded into their lands, so it was decided that they should begin spreading the word earlier, before the threat was on their verge.  They brought many far thinking nations into the alliance but many others refused and many areas were under the sway of the ancestral enemies the Orcs.  

For centuries the Jadanese nation rose and clashed with its allies and it expanded until it covered a space were at it's narrowest would take two weeks to cross on horseback.  It was this nation that first encountered the Empire.  The battles were feirce.  The Jardanese had planned these battles over the last thousand years, refined them against the Orc nations nearby and had an army that was trained to be superior to the Empire's best soldiers.  For e Empire, it was a rude awakening when they first did battle; they lost.

They did not lose by much.  The battle was close and nearly half the Jardanese fell in battle, but it was worse for the Empire.  The dead numbered over one hundred thousand and the armies were evenly matched in size.  The Empire through its weight upon the offensive and while the Jardanese were never routed as badly, they lost time and time again.  After three years, the war collmunated with one large battle which was a total disaster for both sides.  Ninety percent of the Jardanese army was destroyed and close to seventy percent of the Empire's army too.  The Empire was content with a third of Jarda and began a long process of expansion in other regions, the Immortal Emperor feeling that expansion in this quarter would be easier in a different millennia.  

That was five hundred years ago, and the truth of the matter was that if the Empire waited only a couple centuries, they could have mopped up the entire region quickly and easily; the nascent Jardanese Empire disentergrated into over two dozen smaller nations who fought vendettas against the others.  It was in one of these nations, about two weeks North from Jarda, that set itself up as a potential successor of Jarda. 

The nation decided that it would embrace many of the the opposite traits of Jard and began venerating powerful Demons.  These demons lent the new nation power in exchange for veneration.  Many of the people were consorting with demons and many teiflings were born and they rose to positions of power.    After a century of preparations the cult revealed itself to the populous at large with a temple dedicated to the worship of the elements, but moreover to demon kind as well.  The new nation gained power and it sought to bring down and supplant itself where Jarda was, as the main power in the area.  But Jarda still had friends and although it was much reduced in size, the succession of its territories was peaceful, when called, they answered.  

The battle was a mixed affair.  The Jadanese fought and destroyed the armies of their foes but the towns they happened upon were strangely deserted.  When atleast they took the last stronghold they faced a final army composed of demons and soldiers.  The battle was glorious and final, the foes of Jarda vanquished and from there they entered the Temple.  It was there that the will of Jarda was said to break.  What they found within the walls of the Temple was the entire civilian population, men women and child, sacrificed to bring forth the demon army.  The priests and leaders were killed for their crimes and the temple ransacked.  The journals of soldiers did claim that the Temple could not be raised, nor sanctified, so it was sealed against future use and abandoned.  As a last act the lands around the destroyed nation were given to the leading General, Lord Greysteel and he was made a Duke of Jarda.

------

If the players decided to come from this location they would be from the merchant class or the warrior caste, they could be of nobility or a slave caste.  As a slave or Merchant they would select any career to be from, but they would be barred from owning land.  They could be from the nobility rank, and would thus be the son or daughter of either the King or the sons or daughters of the King, and they would know that they stood no chance of being selected as the new king of the land and knowing that they stood a good chance of becoming a slave, if they did not enter the Warrior Caste.  The only way that a slave can escape being a slave for the rest of their life is to join the Warrior Caste.  The Merchant Caste is made from Citizens and their children, the children know that they will become slaves upon the death of their Citizen parent, so although they feel the the push to become citizens, they are least likely to heed the call, unless their parent was also a slave.  

Not all warriors get the Ceremony after five years, some attain the ceremony after reaching 5th level if this occurs before the fifth year, the ceremony with the Emperor occurs at level 12 even if the ten years is not up.  The Emperor places a binding Geas upon all Oathtakers and does not what the takers to be powerful enough to represent a possible threat.  There is a secret to the Oath process, the Emperor does not really want people to swear blindly; blind subservience makes weak leaders.  If the supplicant resists taking the oath, he gives them a difficult quest and modifies the Oath to one that ensures the person will not seek to overthrow the Emperor, and then he sends the personage out on an impossible mission to test their mettle, if they return, they are given citizenship and leadership roles, if they are nobility, he gives them another impossible task and if they succeed before the current king dies, they will be made king.

The Emperor is a Lich.  He gained his power through a mystical ritual powered by a 10th level Wizard spell.  The spell transformed him and sustains him for longer than a normal Lich should be able to go, but he is aware of his mortality and seeks the blessings of the hidden goddess to renew his undead flesh again. He currently has a 10th level spell but research suggests that if he were to discover a more potent secret, he would be able to cast an 11th level spell and it follows that from there he would be able to cast the most potent of spells, the 12th level spell.  His empire's main goal is to acquire that knowledge and thus that power.  In the meantime, he controls the longterm affairs of a nation that he began in his mortal days guided by his long term planning and far reaching powers.  

The Ritual of Allegiance can be cast by any powerful enough caster by evoking the Emperor's name, but the Royal rituals are always conducted by the emperor himself.  If someone takes the oath and is not honest about keeping it they must make a Constitution Save or die, success, they instead take damage equal to 12d6 damage and are knocked to their knees.  The damage and the deaths fuel the ritual.  If cast by the Emperor, no save is required, the Emperor just knows who is lying.  

The History of Jarda

The history of Jarda

Congratulations, you are the result of a modern Western education that includes a historical account of a a near continuous 6000 years, but the majority mostly only really know for sure about the last two hundred to five hundred years and generally.  For example, Canadians know that new France was lost to the British in 1760 and Columbus discovered America in 1492 and that the war of 1812 was fought between the states and Canada (Britain), but they can't tell you that James Madison was President at the time, the Star Spangled Banner was written then, and which battle Laura Secord was involved in; it was Beaver Dam, the battle of Beaver Dam by the way—I looked it up.  Boring, but which goes to show what our fabulous education system has given us. 

Imagine a society where there is no great education system, reading and writing are not common, education is something you learn at home… how much History do you know?  

Jarda, when the people escaped the great Gutral Mastekeena and established their new nation they named it after the Goddess Jard, goddess of Righteous Actions, and established their new realm.  They had traveled for months and months, years to build their new land far from the shadow of the nation that they had rebelled against, and failed.  The land they settled in was devoid of humans, but there were two Elven Courts, a large community of Gnomes, Dwarves and Halflings.  The humans forged an alliance with these people because they were judged to be good kind people down on their luck.  That was over five hundred years ago, see calendar.

The human population quickly grew in this protected situation, the high fecundity of humans outstripping the low fecundity of demi-humans, but since the people were good and kind they facilitated trade between the different groups and all the nations prospered.

Gutral Mastekeena was forgotten for a time, first because the rebellion was so horrible and their defeat so disheartening and the friendship of the the elves and the others so good, that most of the populous that survived those years did not want to burden their children with the tales and the history.  Some wrote books that told the tale and they went to shelves and were covered in dust.  Some of the other races who understood that history was important kept these stories alive or had libraries where this information was valued.  

About three hundred years ago, Jarda entered a period of romanticism of e past and the greatness of its civilization and they uncovered these books and scrolls of their history and they learned of their past.  Often is the case that when a people become great that they look to their history to establish that greatness has always been there.  Perhaps this is why the Elves and the dwarves kept the history from being lost and forgotten.  When Jarda learned of their humble roots it curbed their hunger for conquest and instead turned their purpose to discovery and exploration. 

It was fate that they were strong and vital when they thirsted for the glories of the past because Gutral Mastekeena had been expanding all that time, and their emperor had remembered the rebellion and hunting those rebels down for the last two centuries.  How the two empires, tha nascent Empire of Jarda and the Eternal Empire of Gutral Masstekeena first made contact is not known, but it is known that the Jardanese Empire abruptly stopped its expansion and began an intensive militarization which lasted nearly fifty years and culminated in three large battles in which the cream of the empire were killed and the advance of Gutral Mastekeena was halted.  Contemporary accounts talk of feilds of dead that remained unburied because the dead outnumbered the wounded and the wounded outnumbered the well.  A pyric victory because the losses were so high that Gutral Mastekeena was forced to abandon many of the gains made in the generations before. 

Those three battles occured about 200 years ago.

From the Diary of Decarabia of the House of the Red Torrent, recovered from the Temple of Elemental Evil by Caeledrim the Bard:

 … in the service to her Great dark Goddess Lloth, Decarabia ventured forth from the deep caverns deep in the ground to do what no Drow had done in recorded history and discovered herself within a small human town built at the behest of the Emperor of Gutral Mastekeena a human wizard at least a thousand years old far to the east.  She and here family worked with the emissary of the Emperor to establish a temple that would, according to her, destabilize the kingdom of Jarda to the south, some three weeks travel, through untamed forests, away.  She estimated that the emperor had spent over a million gold on this venture half of which was in tribute to a hapless demon prince named Zyggtomony.  She contends that the emperor must have betrayed her leaking the location of the temple to his enemies in Jarda, hoping that the king there would overextend himself so that Jarda would fall …

Back to the History of Jarda official cannon.

Adventurers exploring the region to the North of the kingdom encountered a large and peaceful group of affiliated states known as the Gnösh-Kâ Confederacy, a loose enclave of a dozen tribes of Orc that had adopted agriculture and trade.  Seeking allies to help them should Gutral Mastekeena ever come back in force the two lands join together.  At that time the existence of e demon cult on the verge of the confederacy is discovered and Jarda anxious to impress the value of the alliance joins with them to crush it and the temple so that it's evil will not fester upon the world.  Jarda then funds the general of the victorious Jardanese side to build an outpost to keep watch on the Temple and to foster better relations with the Gnösh-Kâ.  The General is raised to nobility and is given the title of Duke, Duke of Greysteel.

The Duke of Greysteel was tireless in his desire to serve his nation, Jarda, and to do this starts many great works that are continued afterwards by his son.  They build the citadel of Greysteel with its town, set the foundations for first Hommlet, Sunnydale, Saltmarsh and Neloar.  They built a series of observation forts near the ruined Temple of Elemental Evil and along the tributary of the Mastekeena River, the Grey Mastekeena, near Hommlet and Nulb and the last outside Saltmarsh.  

The last village Nulb was set to be built by the second Duke of Greysteel and after its founding the entire Greysteel family was ambushed by dissident forces of Gnösh-Kâ slaying the entire family except the Duke's youngest son, who was laid up with an mysterious illness

Hey Phil, D&D

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

Hey Moolite, D&D

Hey Moolite,

You fly south intent on finding the tax dodgers of the Duke.  What you find is something bigger.  You find a small group of settlers who have cleared land and ploughed fields, work of a few years.  They have built a rudimentary palisade around the dozen or so houses.  When you arrive they seem elated at your arrival, flying out of the blue sky.  The throw you a banquet and plead with you to stay the night.  

They tell you their story after you have eaten your share of food.  The people of Hommlet have always remembered that there was a town in the woods.  Many of their fathers, mothers, and grandparents have taken them on trips through the woods to this location.  They would tell them that the town was build before people came to Greysteel and was abandoned before then too.  And the stories were that they were to never spend the night inside the old town as it was haunted.  

They told you that they came as children and they picked up baubles and minor treasures and so when they became of age they decided that it would be fun to set out and live here.  There were orchards that bore fruit and there was wild crops in the fields.  There were abandoned houses and castles.  They came and repaired a few of the houses on the edge and cleared land and planted crops and everything was good.  Then about a year ago a group went out and stayed in the ruins looking for more adult treasures so they could afford some supplies from Hommlet.  They never returned.  A week after that the attacks began.  There were many small children at this point and they were afraid that they would not get away, so they built up a palisade and sent a fast woodsman to get aid from Hommlet, and now you have come to fight the undead.  

Do you stay to fight the undead or leave these Tax dodgers to their Fate?

After the brief and undeadly fight, the people of the area hail you as their personal hero.  And they feast to your health for another night, one or two women may have even graced their presence on you late that night.  Yes they were hot!  

You tell them that you will be back as soon as you can, as you have pressing business back in Jarda.  You take flight and arrive in Greysteel a day after the Teleport circle closed, it would be another eight days before it reopened, so you decided to fly to Jarda.  You flew as high as you could fly with your steed so you could see as much as there was to see.  Your survey was as complete as you could make it.  The higher you flew the less detail you could see and if you flew too high, the harder it was to breathe.  The horizon had a gentle curve to it as you rose; the view was exclusively green forest with patches of farmland here and there along the road to Jarda and around Greysteel.  The rivers were narrow ribbons of reflected sunshine and the smudges of smoke showed only the significant settlements of Greysteel, Hommlet and Neloar.  

It took three days to travel by air, what normally took a full fortnight, eighteen days.  Word had preceded you to the city, a city that seemed smaller than when you first went there as an orphan child and smaller now that you had a worldly perspective, of the great feats that your group had accomplished, but only in the circles of the Knights of Jarda.  The regular folk had not heard of you at all.  It appeared that two of your companions had made it to Jarda ahead of you and had acquired engineers and a force of labourers to build their fortifications.  You were able to find some that would swear to work with you as well as they could to repair the castle you had found and you headed off, this time to Greysteel via Teleport Circle.

Your flight from the clearing to Hommlet let you see the direction the road builders needed to follow, that and some local guides lent to you by Sir Gerald.  Half of the workers continued the road and the rest marched through the forest to your lands.  You flew there as promised within a week and returned later with the half of the labourers.  Word of your exploits with the undead spread by the people you saved did much to erase your reputation in Hommlet.  

The investigator you left in the town made a report back to you saying that the old road appeared to head not to Nulb, but to the vanquished Temple of Elemental Evil.  Moreover, many of the buildings appeared to contain summoning circles and some of those buried under hundreds of human skeletons.  The temples seemed to be dedicated to Zuggtomy a Demon Prince.  There also seemed to be a library in the main temple.  Much of the contents had been torched a hundred or more years ago and the rest had suffered from the weather, but he would try to piece together some of the history and who founded the temple.  

You spent much of your days burning the buildings near your castle with the radiant light of Scoria, when you were sure everything was safe you assured that your people would be safer closer to you than where they were.  The walls were nearly completed and the castle was well on the way to completion.  As if to underline that, when they had at last moved in, the undead had become restless again when your investigator uncovered something unexpected.  The ensuing battles lasted much of the next few nights and included some demons that you had fought at the Temple, this time you fought them alone.  

The wall became a priority after that.  When the road had been completed there was a surprise waiting for you, Lord Gerald had amassed a small force of light infantry to join you on the walls.  He said that the Duke was very interested in the work that you were doing for him.  

Even more of a surprise was the contingent of gnomish javelineers who showed up quietly on the end of the road.  They had heard one of their kind had fought off demons and did not want all the glory going to your head.  They were from near the village you came from and they all had equally shitty names.  They were also all dressed in gnome sized plate-mail.   

After a while your village began to grow and fill up with disenfranchised people of Hommlet and Nulb and settlers from Jarda.  Soon your little village was threatening to overflow your walls.  In addition to the shitty gnomes, and the human infantry a number of other troops joined up to fight the fight they always wanted, including a few Knights of Scoria, an order devoted to scouring the land of oath breakers.  

The last development occurred not a few days ago, a hidden vault in the temple to a different Demon Prince, one to a god of spiders.  The vault included a ledger with a letter from the alleged Emperor of some place called Gutral Mastekeena had been a major financial backer of the original town.  The ledger shows that the temple even acquired a massive silver throne as a present to the Demon Queen Zy—. The rest was burnt.  Near that in the vault was a broken Dagger made of black metal.  The vault was more of an entrance to a natural tunnel that went deep into the earth.  

Moolite builds a level 2 castle and a wall,

Elite Archers Bloody Shitty Gnomish

Super Heavy Javelineers 

Seasoned Archers Bloody Useless Human medium longbowmen 

Seasoned Cavalry Shorty’s Shitty Lancers, Human heavy 

Regular Infantry Shorty’s Shit Sticks, human light 

Regular Archers Shorty’s Bad Smell Crossbows, Human light 

Moolite has a mod of 4 and Alignment mod of x1.5.  He has a level 2 keep, so he has a total of 8 artisans, 6 are in the keep.  His keep has a mason, a carpenter, a captain, a priest, a blacksmith, and a sage.  

8+8x4+5x8= 80 families, 400 people

Congratulations, after a year you will have 8 artisans and 80 families.  480 people.  Their income at year end will be 8x2000gp + 80x400 gp or 16000+32000= 48k.  The Duke collects 25% and he gets 60% of that, so you get 4,800 per year.  Nice!

The Carpenter and the Mason add a bonus to all building and repairs of the keep, 5% times the level of their workshop each.  Both are level 1.  The Captain maintains your troops while you are gone, and your Investigator keeps tabs on the area around.  The Blacksmith can make magical weapons, the Priest and the Sage provide a bonus to your character x3 for every extended rest.  Wisdom and intelligence respectfully.