In reply to Elena Sazikova (msg # 24):

You keep casting shade at Dom but he's arguing for a VERY laissez faire attitude within the feudal framework everyone's familiar with. XD

1: "Say what you will, I'm still free."
   Dom has nothing against this. Free Speech is a check on corruption--which would have likely been his primary focus as an Inquisitor of Abadar.

2: "Oathbreakers Die."
   Dom supports enforcement of contracts. Death is a bit too far, but it seems to be more figurative than literal.

3: "Walk any road, float any river."
   Dom has been reluctant to suggest road/bridge/river taxes out of respect for the local customs, but their position between Brevoy and the rest of the River Kingdoms and otherwise difficult river crossings could make this beneficial.

4: "Courts are for kings."
   This is a pretty undefined freedom, but it is said to prevent foreign leaders from visiting out of fear of obtuse laws or laws made on whims. Dom does not support frivolous, unchecked, opaque laws--nor laws that apply differently to different people without good reason.


5: "Slavery is an abomination."
   It can have its uses, particularly in conquest, assimilation, and quelling rebellion, but it is certainly not desirable.

6:  "You have what you hold."
   It's apt to acknowledge this is our claim to the region. But government hates competition! :D Lax enforcement of laws against banditry only serves to undermine our claim, and this 'freedom' allows or even honors bandits.

I'm not seeing any love for sphere 211. cant imagine why, it's such an amazing name

jk jk, seriously though, between silvermarch and tuskwater... tuskwater actually sounds cool but I can absolutely see silvermarch drawing in more merchants and sounding more sophisticated overall.

In reply to Dominique Telvari (msg # 25):

Yeah, as fun as sniping at Dom is, I'm pretty sure we're actually on the same page 95% of the time.  I'll try to tone down the shade a little, if it's getting annoying.

As far as #6 goes, I don't think any river king allows banditry against their OWN interests (aside from the incompetent or corrupt.)  I think it's more a matter of how we deal with someone coming here to sell loot taken from rival kingdoms and the like.  Like, we're not necessarily obligated to make them our problem.

Still not sure about the silver part. Hmm, maybe "Rivermarch"? Unlike silver, we got plenty of rivers. "Hartland(s)" also sounds kinda cool, if indeed "Candyland" or "Owlbearony" are out of the question.

In reply to Elena Sazikova (msg # 27):

It's all good, but I have to point out the LN Inquisitor and LG Paladin are debating about how chaotic our nation should be. XD

In reply to Kael Valleni (msg # 28):

I'm leaning hard on River March, Rivermarch, etc.
Sounds like LOTR now :)

In reply to Borric d'Tor (msg # 30):

I had to look it up(and maybe I'm the only one who didn't know,) but 'march' originates etymologically from 'border,' 'edge,' or 'boundary.' (Silver Marches likely named after the leader Alustriel Silverhand and/or his city Silverymoon and bordering the orc hordes they were united against.) So River March/Rivermarch works as we are a sort of boundary to the River Kingdoms.

And if we go Monarchy, "Marquis d'Tor" has a nice ring to it.

Sounds nice. But does Monarchy strongly suggest/require/etc that Borric gets married and wife producing children. Oh the pressures of motherhood :|

If you wish the Kingdom to last longer than your life I would strongly suggest getting married and having some children...

In reply to Borric d'Tor (msg # 32):

the thought of borric as a mother is almost a fascinating one.

That's kinda why I want to give the council the ability to appoint kings.  More immediate to the game is what if Borric gets eaten by an owlbear next month, before he can pop out a replacement unit?  Canonically his family are all bastards, and going by blood means one of them gets the kingdom (6th River Freedom notwithstanding.)
This message was last edited by the player at 01:16, Fri 11 June 2021.

There are a lot of positions to fill and more than there are players. If all the positions are part of the council and thus have a vote, then the PCs may well be outnumbered. That might make retaining control more difficult.

Ruler:
Consort/Regent: No penalty for vacancy but can act as Ruler in Ruler's absence
Councilor:
General:
Grand Diplomat:
Heir: No penalty for vacancy but can act as Ruler in Ruler's absence
High Priest: Are any of us Clerics, Might be a good position for Jhod
Magister:
Marshall:
Royal Enforcer: No penalty for vacancy
Spymaster:
Treasurer:
Viceroy: Might need one if the Kobold's are left a Separate state otherwise not needed.
Warden:

Going by Ultimate Campaign.
The Ruler (or if we make it a council) must hold court a minimum of 7 days a month. That's 7 days you cannot explore, cannot adventure, etc.

Now if we make it a council then we are an Oligarch

Base Stats:

Economy:   0
Loyalty:   0
Stability: 0


Alignment of Kingdom Modifiers:

LG +2 Economy, +2 Loyalty
LN +2 Economy, +2 Stability
NG +2 Loyalty, +2 Stability
N  +4 Stability

I ignored Chaotic and Evil choices as they would be against the majority of the party.

Usually a Kingdom starts with a single hex, I recommend F4 because if we don't claim the fort someone else will...
Not sure how much the time hop will be but you can normally only claim 1 hex per month.

Order of Hex Claiming:

F4  Initial Hex
E5  We need the river bridge if we plan to trade
D4  We need to explore this hex....
C4  Again need to control river crossings
B4  Raddish Patch
A5  Oleg's

This would provide a road to Oleg's once built.

We'll need a farm in F4 (it's next to the lake), E5 and D4 could also have farms.

Please remember, we have some agency and flexibility here. In addition, we are already using different rules from those and will likely be using even further different rules when the gm adapts the new ones being released

What rules are we using then?

We can't really make decisions without knowing what rules are being used....

In reply to Caramip Scheppen (msg # 38):

dont worry about the mechanics? I mean, thats not an official statement of course... but like, we could just go off of rp and adjust later?

The GM said the rules are in limbo... until the book is published. I don't remember the name of the book.

But we can still make plans (see post #1) and Caramip's suggestion makes sense.

I would say C5 instead of C4. 'cause gold.

I'm not sure controlling river crossings is necessary unless we're planning to tax them. (RP standpoint)

I'd suggest taking the 5's up instead of the 4's. If we're using Ultimate Campaign rules(on d20pfsrd) or similar, plains are also easier and quicker to claim and build roads on--and the roads aren't doubled in cost for having to build bridges as well.

I think we are using the standard kingdom rules at least to start with, and then we'll see I guess. I'll have to look at the rules in more detail, but one thing that is obvious is that staying clear of kobold's path will definitely be a problem, as not only is it cutting right across the lands, but it also holds the gold mine. We'll have renegotiate our deal with them soon. Beyond that, exactly what we can do will depend on our available resources, which are still kinda in limbo at the moment.

As for council position, we can place NPCs on unfilled posts once we determine which position we wish to take. For Kael, that's spymaster. Who else do we have? We can probably set up things so that only PC council members actually have voting power, if we are going down the oligarchy road. But I'm fine more traditional monarchy as well, or some combination of the two.

The Fort lies across the river from Oleg's so you need at least one of the bridges unless you plan to pay bandits everytime a merchant crosses....

We'll have to deal with the Mites and negotiate with the Kobolds before we can take the 5 line.

E5 is a 5

Do we? }:^)
Even the route you suggested goes through their "Radish Corridor." And did you all not deal with the mites before I joined? I'll have to look that up.
I think, so long as we aren't taking over the silver mine, radish fields, or under the sycamore, we'd be sticking to the wide grey area in the agreement Borric didn't sign with them if we claim and develop the hexes the features are on. And I'm sure they'll see the writing on the wall when we renegotiate.

In reply to Dominique Telvari (msg # 44):

The mites are pretty beat up and scattered, I think the kobolds even now hold the mites old base.

A river divides the Stolen Lands almost in two....if you surrender the river crossings you'll be surrendering the kingdom to bandits, after all where were the bandits when we came? Where they expected people to be :) like river crossings....

Maybe we could discuss that with the kobolds when we go meet up with them... cara, you me and elena are making a trip out there anyways, right?

@Kael: Here's the current council, AFAIK.

Ruler (CHA)           - Borric
General (CHA/STR)     - Elena
Marshal (DEX/WIS)     - Saira
Spymaster (DEX/INT)   - Kael
Treasurer (INT/WIS)   - Dominique
Diplomat (CHA/INT)    - Cara.

Looking at the NPC list in the adventure log, here's my thoughts for the other roles:

High Priest (CHA/WIS) - Jhod, obviously.
Councilor (CHA/WIS)   - Oleg or Svetlana.
Magister (CHA/INT)    - Bokken or Minerva?  Neither are great.
Warden (CON/STR)      - Akiros or Kesten.
Enforcer (DEX/STR)    - Kesten or Akiros.

That's six PCs to five NPCs.  Four if we don't have an enforcer.  I don't think we need to disenfranchise the NPCs if we go Oligarchy.  OOC, I'm sure they'll just go along with us unless it's more interesting for them not to.  IC, some of the NPC jobs kinda deserve a vote more than Spymaster.

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@Caramip: I think "claiming" a hex means investing in settlement, etc.  If some bandits block a bridge right outside our doorstep, we can still go kill them.

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@Saira: I'm game, if our DM can spare the attention to put us through a side-story.  There is probably a lot to set up, and he might prefer to just focus on the main storyline for now.

In reply to Elena Sazikova (msg # 48):

Did we ever recover Minerva? She ran off and was helping Tort. I dont recall us ever catching her again.

Saira would vote no on akiros being enforcer, we may have had a chance to negotiate with the fort... maybe... but akiros focused in on just killing. Maybe he was right, but if he wasnt then he took away our chance to do it our way and thats not something we want our enforcer doing. A warden is more of a reactive, protective, role and thats fine.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:02, Sun 13 June 2021.