Galena?
Madness. Utter madness. Planning and planning and planning and slowly building. It's driving me insane. The bastards have no appreciation for how difficult it is to manage this mess while staying within the law to keep this financial house of cards from collapsing! After he killed the SIXTEEN ravens that have been lurking about I've become confident enough in his competence to make made Lord_lemonpie bookkeeper and put him in charge of the under construction warehouse. We need to figure out what kind of resources we have, who owns them, and what can be done with them so we can manage these stockpiles more carefully. The bloody tavern basement is filled with plum pits, we're deadly low on drink, it's impossible to walk with all the bloody wood everywhere and we haven't planted a single crop. I grabbed a farmer and told him that if he ,even for a moment, was seen not burning would I would be VERY put out by it, I warned another I'd drown him if he didn't get off his ass and start brewing, With our stockpiles working more efficiently I think we can get a bit more done next month. Once we start burning more wood we should be ready to start metalwork and pottery. After that I'll throw a few houses up along the road to my estate. [/quote]
Limestone1
The warehouse needs to be roofed and several houses need to be built and several industries need to be created. The hell with it. These ungrateful bastards don't appreciate my hard work so as the fearless leader of this village I'm placing myself first. My estate is built, it is furnished, and it is stocked with fine foods.
Then we can talk about your problems.
Limestone 14
My home is coming along nicely, I decided against pulling all other labors to get it done. The wine's shored up, the furnace is churning out charcoal at a good pace and once we get some more wheelbarrows the metal industry will start up immediately. I may assign pottery next, I don't like digging stone like this, I fear the tunnels may collapse and I can't take a hit to my reputation like that if I ever plan to sell shares. It may be advisable to [a dark pool appears here where a quill was apparently set down for some time.]
Traders are here. Bim Glazesubtles showed up with a dwarven caravan without any time to prepare. (SO glad I paid those filthy tree hippies to warn me of this EXACT THING) Bim is here ostensibly to trade but I'm certain she's been sent to look for any sort of holes in our story. I daresay she may have found one. It would seem that if a village is comprised by more than 70% dwarves and those dwarves have any sort of permanent leadership they must be tied to the nearest dwarven civilization lest that civilization be shamed by their behavior.
I told her we had no leader, she asked one of the dwarves building the one stone structure ,a stately manor, who would live there and this idiot dwarf replied “Koreg.” I clarified that I meant I was not permanent in any capacity and would be handing over control very shortly to the nearest dwarf I could physically grab which was in this case PK. If she believed me even for a moment it was not at all apparent. I suspect she will go to great lengths to report back anything she can to His Majesty's Tax Service. Unless I want to be dragged off by the MTS I'll have to earnestly entrust PK with [a word has been obliterated by tears and burns] VILLAGE operations.
No matter, I hate every part of this. There are owls everywhere but none of them giant which is convincing more and more dwarves that there never was a giant owl. There are raven and echidna carcasses left out in the sun because as of yet I haven't found the time to designate a trash heat. I also haven't had the time to assign someone to watch the animals but for now I'm quite okay with that. I chatted with the “Liaison” [read:blasted spy] in the pub and while I did so she nearly vomited at the spectacle of a pig experiencing miracle of life on the freshly cleaned floor of the Pickled Plum.
She of course had to behave as though this was simply a trading mission and asked about what we needed. I placed an order for as much drink as her team could carry, at least one bull and at least one cow, and some fine silk cloth and assured her, gesturing towards the silver statuette that we could certainly afford it when the metalworks were operating at 100% efficiency. Technically I never said we made the statuette or that there was an abundance of silver here. No, I'll leave saying that to her men who are less than disciplined and likely to tell wild stories of the tax free village situated on top of a huge deposit of mineral wealth.
She was vaguely interested but when I mentioned ,and only slightly overstated, how much iron we'd successfully pulled from the ground and she was very interested. She didn't say anything specific but her request led me to me to a few inferences.
This appears to be a list of warfare materials. Pearlash makes clear glass which makes spyglasses, drums horns and the like communicate across the battlefield, splints and thread are medical supplies, the weapons and armor are probably self-explanatory, a good hard cheese makes an excellent field ration, and the anvils would of course make more weapons and armor. It is known that the goblin menace was nearly wiped out by the half year crusade of the human general Rushan Springcradles they have been incapable of real force projection for the 56 years since his death. My theory is that the Goblin Master Kul Veiledmines who took power shortly after we left for Nevertaxed has rallied an offensive and attacked some of our less defended resources. No doubt many settlements have been sacked, many strongholds raided, and many atrocities perpetrated against our people for our defenders lacked the resources to fight effectively. This is a tragedy for all of us... who don't own an operational iron mine on tax-free land. EvictedSaint will see owls wherever I tell her to when she can't fill her orders without my iron and I can't wait until we have the money to hire some more competent hands for the plum harvest and that bastard flower picker Weird is out on his ass. Of course this is good news for others to, the fellow who takes over the animal industry may make a tidy profit trading strong wool thread and cheese. I suppose HugoLuman is going to do fairly well in the splint game too.
I plied her with some of our stiffer wines and with tactful questioning got her appraisal of the financial situation back home. It seems there's been a sudden interest in fortress reclamation.
I imagine they plan to restore the fortresses to working condition, declaring them perfectly restored, and selling them to interested parties for an impressive mark up. Fortress flipping! That's where the money is. But there's no legacy there, Nevertaxed will be my masterpiece and my name will be associated with it for all time. My home is nearly complete, the second floor is nearly finished and I'm producing furnishings for it myself. When this bloody year is done I'll be holed up in my manor with a nice glass of wine, a nicely seasoned piece of fish, and peace.
Sandstone 14
The traders left with a few of the wheelbarrows HugoLuman made, there was no time to give them more but if there had been there was nothing else we really needed from them. I made Neblime broker, I thought convincing him to take on some responsibility would make him more trustworthy. I'm better with the social arts and PK is a better appraiser but neither he nor I need to do more to establish our credibility.
Sandstone 17
Migrants! 16 this time, I assumed the first handful was unusually large but it seems my little venture has attracted a great deal of attention. There are now 31 able bodied dwarves and two children in the
fort VILLAGE VILLAGE VILLAGE VILLAGE. I havent had a chance to do inventory of them all but I expect
Kangaroo. I am not insane. In our little slice of subarctic heaven a troop of Kangaroo just went hopping past, NO! NO I AM NOT INSANE!
[there's a large spill on the paper]
I'm afraid my first impression with the new migrants may have been less than I hoped. I kicked the door of the Pickled Plum, pointed out ten of them and told them if they didn't kill a kangaroo and prove my sanity I would throw them out of the village. They chased the animals down, and managed to corner one, they held it down and a passing miner struck it in the head with a pickaxe. I've given Neblime control over the animal industry and a butcher shop. We'll get these damned animals out of the Pickled Plum and eat Kangaroo for dinner. Maybe this will convince some people that there are strange things in these woods.
"Hawkblockades. We gotta talk."
Bim 'Saint' Eshtanilun sat across from Koreg Hawkbockades at the Pickled Plum, two pints of booze sitting between them. Between building his lavish manor, hauling wood and fallen plums, and their war on gigantic owls, they'd barely had a minute to sit down and hash out this little...meeting.
Bim took a drink from her mug, then set it back down with a deliberate *clink.*
"It's about your mine. I understand that you're charging fifteen times going market rate for any scrap of metal that comes out of the ground. That puts me and my growing industry of metal working in a...'precarious' position." She took another sip, letting that hang in the air.
"I need metal. You need a skilled metal worker to fill your god-awful manor with all sorts of shiny crap. I'm sure we can come to an agreement. Unless...you know, you think that owl knows how to blacksmith."
"Well I suppose that is a precarious situation." Koreg took a swig and spent a moment sampling the flavor. "I imagine teaching an owl to mine would be a rather tall order. But I wonder if I could find someone a bit more open to learning." he absently glanced around at the hall and the new migrants. "Anything's possible with a good teacher I suppose. Have you met Cilob?"
"She's quite eager to start working and she's expressed interest in owning her own forge. Wouldn't it be awful if after uprooting your life and travelling to this cursed place you weren't the only game in town?" He smiled. "I could also just fill my lovely abode with artfully created stonework from the fruits of my mine and simply sell my raw ore on the market. If you aren't willing to accept my prices I suppose I could just give her your forge, there are industries with cheaper costs of doing business and I'm sure you'd fit in somewhere.We do need to build a dump after all, you could pick through the decaying meat for bones- wouldn't that be fun?
"But no. While I'm confident I could charge you one hundred times the market price and it would still be more efficient to buy from me than to import material I am not at all happy with this state of affairs. There is no reason we can't be friends- there's a war on after all and we're all on the same side. I'd be happy to sell to you at 75 percent
below market price in exchange for 10% off the top from all sales of silver as well as 5% of Iron and Copper. All it takes to make this deal possible is that you admit that it is conceivable in this strange world where trees grow to twice their normal size and kangaroos bound about the arctic circle that it's
possible that I did in fact see a giant owl."
Bim's eyes narrowed at Hawkbockades words. A calm smile didn't escape her face, but the air around her grew icy enough to chill the brandy sitting on the table.
"You're quite bold, Koreg. You can stack card after card upon your grand little house, but you're so ready to burn those around you that you won't see it coming when it all goes up in flames. You think that you can strangle the industry of those around you and still have your Fortress grow?" She savored the twitch he made when she said the word 'fortress'.
"I admit that it is indeed possible, in this strange little world where self-inflated dwarves succeed from the mountain home and expect no retribution from the king they'd so thoughtlessly insulted, that in your stressful, addled state, you saw a giant owl. I'll not debate whether or not this owl exists, but I whole heartedly believe that you saw it. 75% below market price, with the value of the ore to be payed off in goods furnished in my shop. 5% on iron, copper, and silver, paid in a similar manner. A temporary workshop for now, and a two-story 64 tile Forge named 'The Hammer and Cock' to be built within three years of today. And, to top it all off, I become the Head of the Metalworkers Guild." She thought for a moment, then added, "Oh, and Cilob Alathzat becomes my employee."
Bim leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink. "Do this for me, and I'll furnish your home with whatever gaudy metal baubles you want for the price of the metal itself. Do this, and you'll never have a problem from me again. Your little house of cards will be secure, and you can go about building it higher and higher."
"I accept," He said. "If anyone in this
Village so much as looks at an anvil they'll never get a single piece of ore from me. I'll make a case to the other founders that you've earned fourteen more tiles and I'll stake off an area just as soon as you can show me where you'd like it." He set a rolled map on the table.
"Feel free to report your feelings on this house of cards I've built after you've sold your first helmet and nobody takes seventy percent of your earnings, and while your at it why don't you consider that during this conversation you've insulted a powerful person, demanded a larger home, and sought the power to control others. Ask yourself; are you upset about the way I do business or that I've done it so much better than you?"
Koreg walked back to Silver Plum Manor smiling.
Bim smiled. She'd let Koreg get away with his barbed words for now. She had what she wanted...and it was enough to start building her own little empire. She plotted out her land, choosing a 7x9 plot of tile in prime center-village real-estate. That'd add up to 63 tiles; the 64th tile would extend out into the street as a small bridge/door, connected to a lever. All built out of stone block, of course. It'd be dangerous to have a wooden forge.
She set the map aside and enjoyed the rest of her brandy at a leisurely pace. She'd done good today. She'd staked out a profitable future for her little metalsmithing company, established herself as the Guild Leader of Metalworking at the Table of Commerce, and made a (temporary) truce with Koreg.
She wasn't too worried about that last part, though. Hawkblockades would slip up at some point, and he did, Bim would be there. It may be tomorrow, it may be three years from now, but at some point she would become the figurehead of this little...Fortress. Of that, she was certain.
Timber 14
We've negotiated a 189% markup on axes to fuel the war effort.
This item is worth 3,213 soveriegns. Tax free. There is no excise tax on arms sales, there is no sales tax, there is no tax for using a non guild smith, there are no licensing fees for the management of the forge, there is no property tax on the land the forge is built on, hell the only expenses are transport fees which are already factored into merchant prices transport fees. And it's iron which means according to my arrangement with Saint I get 5% off the top.
I just made 160 gold sovereigns and fifty silver gears.
I declared I was on break and spent most of the morning working out hypothetical equations. A silver mace of similar quality would fetch an even nicer price with it's more expensive materials and it's 200% markup.
Timber 28
Fantastic! Our Village wealth has been increased by thirty three percent with the addition of our first artifact. Stricken by inspiration one of the new migrants commandeered a craftsdwarf shop and with a hematite and conglomerate boulder produced this glorious creation. There was a large crowd when I arrived and I cut straight through the assembled mass and prepared to offer five thousand crowns. I stopped myself and instead offered the title of “manager”. The dwarf was an herbalist come to pick fruit for a living wage, I can't imagine she's seen a scrap of power in her life. She accepted graciously and spirited it back to my bedroom at Silverplumb Manor. (The name Lucrekept seemed to draw the attention of the Liaison so I've changed it to something less on the nose.) On reflection I decided that for all the hell these people have put me through my dream is being realized and it's thanks to their hard work. I replaced the silver talisman in the bar with the figurine and returned the talisman to my living space. The workers seem pleased.
A third of our [a section of the paper has been cut out] VILLAGE VILLAGE VILLAGE wealth is now tied up in this thing.
Poll
5 (29.4%)
Author
Topic: Nevertaxed: Dwarven Village Bloodline (Overseers Needed!) (Read 53169 times)