IC-Material: The Steppes

This thread will contain all information about the initial situation covered by roleplay and metagame until now as well as summaries of all future results.

Resources spent so far:

- The Purse and Hammer, a large inn for workers, craftsmen and merchants at Wayrest Castle. 10000 denars, 2 Timber, 1 Granite
- Money and Supplies to fill the stores and granaries and draw craftsmen to the steppes. 52 Supply (11 from the Gauntlet), 5000 denars
- Granaries and Storehouses to store food for the winter. 3 Timber
- Timber to repair and reinforce the roofs and walls of the houses in the steppes. 6 Timber
- Firewood stores. 9 wagonloads of scrap wood and kindling from the sawmills.

Geography:

The main focus of this event is on the eastern steppes, formerly known as the Jatu steppes. (Perhaps we will find another sufficiently epic sounding name in the course of the event. Silvermist Steppes would not be the worst, I guess, though ) They are comprised of Eastcrown March (60), the Silverwood Forests (61, a forest but still inherent part of the area) and the steppeward halves of the Talon March (44), Valorshield March (53), Evasolde March (52) and March of Alden (59).
The shore of Lake Avendor in the Talon March (see map) is moderately fertile due to the more humid air near the waterfront. The lake itself however is weakly salty (like the Caspian Sea e.g.). Clouds that form over the lake due to evaporation of water are driven east by a steady western wind and do not rain down until they are stopped by the eastern hills and mountains, rendering the central regions (brown on the map) more arid. Towards the north and south run rivers and the far eastern hills (Eastcrown) have a moderately steadier supply with water than the central steppes due to the clouds raining down there.

Population and Settlements:

The first settlers were the freed Krom and Kral slaves, called Veccavi newdwellers or simply newdwellers now. They were led to their new homes, supplied and assisted in the construction of their villages around the first new steppe castle, Freeman's Redoubt, which has been extended to a proper stone castle by now. They number roughly 1500. After the villages were established by order of the king war orphans and homeless families were integrated into the settlements to ensure their continued existence.
Meanwhile the Silvermist explored and occupied the rest of the steppes, building castles in Eastcrown and the Silverwood and the only nominally subdued steppeward halves of the other counties. When the prospectors struck gold in Eastcrown the development sped up considerably, the never ending flow of gold financing a rigorously enforced program to turn the steppes into areas attractive to settlers. Villages developed around the castles newly constructed by the Silvermist and I would assume that the huge amount of money spent for new buildings attracted another wave of settlers that lost their homes and work in the wars. (Please correct me if that is wrong.)
Eastcrown, already home to the gold mines, was also soon chosen as location for the secret laboratory, thus being guarded by a permanent garrison in order to protect this centre of Silvermist power, bringing more families into the steppes as permanent settlers.
Talon March and Evasolde March have spice plantations and farms as well as one flax farm on the more fertile soil at the steppe border. All counties have dirt roads and training grounds and there are sentry outposts in Talon, Valorshield and Silverwood. Talon and Alden are currently being patrolled by detachments of rangers and mounted rangers.

Objectives:

Our first main objective is to ensure a steady supply with food all over the steppes in order to sustain a growing population. After that several other plans wait to be enacted, of which we shall speak later. In general it is not necessary for you, Psychozoa, to make up storylines of yourself, since all initiative will come from us. We only require results for the actions we have planned. Of course, if you want to bring in some storylines of yourself to make it a bit more difficult for us, do go ahead.

Thank you for the input.

I have a nightshift on the 31 of October so expect the first post that night =)

Can I just add;

Economy; Agrarian (cattle herding), virtually all the Krom / Kral guards who have settled on the Steppe were farm labourers or city dwellers of a poorly educated / serf background with few if any skills. As such there is virtually no industry of any kind, not even a rudimentary cottage industry, and absolutely no skilled artisans present. As such, all cattle is exported to larger towns like Laria, where the newdwellers are often cheated by the merchants as they have no business acumen. However, the journey to and from market are relatively safe thanks to the regular Clarion Call and Silvermist patrols, who often accompany these travelling farmers. The majority of the farmers are cattle ranchers, though the flax farm has begun to offer some more settled employment, but the soil in general is poor with rushing winds that tends to cut down any sizeable attempts at farming the land.

The steppe people rely heavily on the generosity of their overlords for building materials and supplies outside of hides / milk / cheese / meat as the steppe has very few raw materials of its own, and even if it did it would be unlikely that the steppe dwellers were able to extract or work them.

Immigration is not as high as the Silvermists had hoped, though there is a steady stream of male peasants and bandits trying to settle down, that filter in from neighbouring Sarleon trying to escape oppressive lords. These groups are not very big, and do not contribute much population growth. Currently the peasants leaving their lands are minimal, but if this trend increases expect to find Sarleon nobles looking for run away serfs. These are all without exception economic migrants (moving especially to the gold rich Eastcrown), on the lookout for handouts from their sponsors, and they tend to send any earnings back home. Their work ethic does at times clash with that of the Veccavians who are far more willing to put in the work to make a success of their second chance at life, and despite the harsh conditions here they are more free than they ever were at home.

The outlook for further immigration is generally good because of the opportunities of wealth generation being offered, however this also has the potential to encourage less... desirable migrants to move in. There are 1500 Veccavians, about 300 Migrants, plus a further 300 or so orphans. The male to female ratio is terrible, at virtually 90% male, with the only females of any note being orphaned girls (not counting the Silvermist families, though these are numerically negligible).

Most newdwellers are very willing to put in the work required in gratitude for their freedom and morale remains high.

Thanks for clearing that up, Mordred. How about the villages in immediate proximity of the castles? As I described earlier in another thread (Knots, Guedelon and Technology in the Den of Iniquities) building a castle would automatically cause a village to develop around it. Also, I forgot to mention that when we helped the newdwellers settle in the Talon March we hired retired farmers to teach them basics of farming and herding.

I had meant to add;
Leadership is an increasing problem too, while all the newdwellers did what was required at first to develop the necessitation of life (sustainable ranching, building shelters and finding water), they are completely used to strong leadership and without it tend to do, well, nothing. There is a serious lack of initiative among them, which some of the economic migrants take advantage of. One thing that has been noticed however, is despite their background they still take well to female leaders, and some of the Silvermist and Clarion Call female officers have managed to get a great deal out of the Veccavians when they had to take the lead on a project.

Regarding the Talon March farmers, these retirees have allowed the farms / plantations to work at all, their primary innovation being to plant trees and hedges around the fields to provide shelter from the wind. They are however unused to farming the steppe also, so there is very little else they can offer excepting general farming tips, and cattle care.

The villages around the castles are small and threadbare, the majority of ranching being done over great distances. However these settlements do house the storehouses from which their hosts dispense materials, so an economy of travel (inns, taverns, etc) has grown up around them. Because raids are so infrequent, the newdwellers have not taken to settling around the fortifications as has occurred in the rest of Pendor.

The exception to this is Freemans Redoubt which has a much higher population than the others due to its position as the central administration centre for the region, and a number of scribes (and their families) have moved in along with the only horse dealer in the area catering currently only to the many messengers required for this operation to work.

Thanks. Looks like we have a lot to do... Best get moving.

It was never going to be easy!

Time for another Rape of the Sabines.

*."Rape" means here kidnapping. Don't sue me.

If I may just pop in for a second..

You Silvermists are too ingenious for your own good

your welcome anytime with the Dawn..

Spent resources updated according to recent orders.

Spoiler:

The part south of the Market has grown on its own and is crossed by many small alleys. The other parts were mostly planned by the silvermists and newdwellers.
The market is crowded with small stands. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. I will try to keep the map up to date as much as possible.

Pending Issues:
Envoys to the D'Shar steppes
Development of the fishing villages and salinae
Effects of the new inn at Wayrest and the monetary support sent there (1000 per turn)
Effects of the increased garrisons on overall security

For simplicity the issues could be the contents of a report that Iskar receives after his return to the Clarion Hall and when you deem it appropriate, of course.

the envoys from the steppes are on the way and the rest will be calculated...

What timeframe are we using here? At the beginning when we were in S1T1 it said there were 5 months (=turns) left until winter. Now, however, S2T2 is the second month of summer... I'm a bit confused.

No that you say it am confused as well... I honestly can't remember saying that it will take 5 months until winter. And I just made that time frame up that S1 was spring because I didn't see any other timeline on this forum. And because no one interfered or stopped me I just continued with it. It is only positive for you because you have more time now to prepare the steppes for the winter. Right now the calculation is that winter starts s3t2... but be advised that weather forecast is not always correct

Well, I won't mind. You mentioned the 5 months on page 3 of the OOC thread, bottom of the page, but since everyone is working with the timeframe given by the summergames now I guess we can roll with it. So officially we would have time until S3T2 (or S2T3 if we want to be finished by the end of summer when the weather can get nasty).