Arkeus said:
That's something i would have liked to know sooner, as both those things are very big divergence on real life stuff (Bastard have been historically a very big potential of heirloom and a threat to any brother/sisters).
'Feudal' is a term that covers several dozen cultures spanning about 800 years, so you have to expect some variation even before throwing in real magic and a somewhat different religion. I'll be happy to answer questions about this sort of thing as they come up.
The critical point here is that the mothers would be commoners. If you have a dalliance with a noblewoman that would indeed be a major risk, because any child she has would be a potential heir regardless of your marital status. But if the mother is a commoner her children can't inherit unless you marry her and legally recognize them.
Arkeus said:
So, another question: You are saying people might speculate that we are gay and it would hurt our rep- are you saying it sees being gay as a bad thing? That's also very weird historically as beign gay being a bad thing was more or less only unforced by the christian church, in most other cultures it was considered in more interesting ways. E.G greeks where only the person receiving was considered 'badly', and only if that person was old, as it was considered 'good' for younger men to be taught like that by their mentor/superior officers, etc etc.
This looks a bit like it's christian-kind of culture, except for the whole sex guilt and the fact that bastard aren't a very significant threats.
A lot of Borjerian culture can be explained by noting that their god is real, he's not shy about telling his priests what to preach, and he's a fairly stereotypical male warrior deity. So the religion resembles Catholicism in a lot of ways because Khersis is kind of an intolerant, warmongering bigot.
Being gay is't actually illegal in Borjeria, but there's considerable social stigma against it. It's the sort of thing that makes all the other noblemen uncumfortable with having you around, which would lead to a lot of little social disadvantages that add up to a significant problem.
kinglugia said:
...No real birth control, you say?
Flesh Sorcery. Increase its level. Modify things. Temp birth control.
That seems like a plausible line of research. Magical birth control has been done before, there's just never been a way to mass produce it.
Thomasfoolery said:
I don't think so, the way I understand it what we did last turn was train a one-off increase in a specific Flesh magic ability that does not count to increasing general competence in the overall art.
Correct. Training to increase your level is a different action than training to discover a new ways to use your sorcery.
Arkeus said:
However, we were flat out told by the DM in a recent-ish post that our men can't go travelling anymore as it's too cold (yes, we should have been told in the update, but heh). So most of this is impossible.
Correct. It actually does say that in the update - down at the end, under 'Other Events'.
Arkeus said:
This is why i want adventure hooks, as at least Dominic can go outside (fire magic helps).
Yes, being able to start fires instantly on demand helps a lot. You can still go adventuring with a small party even in the dead of winter, which is a big advantage over most nobles.
Basically you're going to have 2-3 months every year where most people can't do much of anything outdoors. Your two best options for productive use of that time are to either go adventuring, or do a lot of training.
fitzgerald said:
We hold our fief through our Grandfather, not through our father. Lines of command are pretty clear, we report directly to the Duke.
More importantly the issue is that our Uncle is off fighting a Crusade for 10 years, Nikolas is his appointed regent.
Without the proper orders from the Duke we're going to be do diddly to effectively clean up this mess. We literally can't examine this corruption in our Uncles Barony without the Dukes permission.
The critical point is we are giving the Duke our honest report and then going "Shall I kick this fools teeth in for you, or will you be sending your own leg breakers" in politer terms of course.
Arkeus said:
The lines of commands are not so clear:
Yes, our grandfather is our ultimate authority. But the one who has gifted us the estate is our father, and our grandfather is IMPORTANT. He doesn't have time to take care of every 'minor' detail in all the estates that belong to him.
I would think that before we go to him things should be seriously more important.
fitzgerald said:
As for the issues with our Uncles barony, technically we should be kicking it up to our Grandfather the Duke. I'm going to suggest waiting until after we've done a full survey in March and then put together a report that basically goes "We suspect shenanigans. Here's our proof, do you wish us to proceed any further"
Arkeus said:
We suspect Shenanigans from the old accountant though, not from our uncle. As such, well, he is an 'inferior' and going through our grandfather for dealing with him would just show a lack of decisivity. If we suspected our uncle it would be something else, but even then it would be better to go through our father.
There are several good points in all of this, but also some confusion I feel I should clear up.
If Nikolai is really cheating on the tax reports you have a very delicate situation on your hands.
Normally if a crime occurs on your own land you'd be the one to judge the case, but if someone else's vassal defrauds you in an indirect way like this you'd have to complain to his lord for redress. But in this case that would amount to complaining to Nikolai about his own behavior, which isn't going to get you anywhere. In theory you could write to Pavel, but he obviously trusts Nikolai or he wouldn't have left the man running Pischia.
Currently you owe fealty to your father, while he and Pavel both owe fealty to your grandfather the Duke. So you could write to your father for help and see what he can come up with, but he'd be facing the same challenge. Ultimately he could complain to the Duke about it, but that's the nuclear option - your grandfather is a busy man who doesn't tolerate nonsense, and if you're going to involve him you need to be very certain you can prove your case. You also shouldn't go to him directly, because that would be going over your father's head in a rather insulting way.
Scary side thought here: what if Nikolai is doing it on Pavel's orders? That's the kind of thing that could spark an internal war in the family, which would be bad for everyone.
So what can you do?
Well, obviously you want to take steps to prevent any further theft. If you investigate on your own maybe you can find proof to take to the duke - there are probably a lot of commoners involved in various parts of a scheme like this, and they have a lot less legal protection than another lord's personal retainers. Maybe you can put enough pressure on Nikolai to make him prosecute a few confederates, and recover some fraction of the money from them.
Alternatively, you could try to cash in. If Nikolai is stealing from Corzu to line his own pockets, he's probably doing it to Pischia too. Maybe you could blackmail him in return for your silence, either for money or other concessions. Maybe you can figure out where he keeps his money, and rob him back. Maybe there's a larger scheme going on, and you can uncover a secret conspiracy of some sort.
Or maybe you just smile and nod and play along, and one night when there aren't any witnesses around you gut the bastard and bury him in an unmarked grave.
