>name
Miranda Wrights
>signature frilly dress color
White with lots of blue, favors ribbons integrated into the design
>hairstyle/color
Pinned bun, black hair
>in character knowledge questions
What's the local technology like? Most common power sources, finest degree of craftsmanship available vs. affordable examples, concealable things, magic, ect.?
>course of action
Check the tower for squatters, it's been left alone for awhile.

>name
Clarissa von Eupersberg

>signature frilly dress color
Purple. Royal purple.

>hairstyle/color
Long, black as sin, and slightly wavy.

>in character knowledge questions
How do our assets compare to those of other princesses we know of? How numerous are our rivals? What well-established strategies need we be wary of- would it be out of the question, for example, for someone to know that we were coming of age, would likely use our inherited estate, and have already planted their agents there in order to cause us no small embarrassment at being captured before we ever get settled?

>course of action
Clear out the tower, expecting squatters, wild beasts, or a clever plot by our rivals to already be in place. Once we're reasonably certain that it's secure, we will need to acquire additional peasants to conduct repairs and serve as our minions.

>What's the local technology like? Most common power sources, finest degree of craftsmanship available vs. affordable examples, concealable things, magic, ect.?

The most common power source is peasants. Gigantic wooden water wheels installed by rivers are a distant second, followed closely by windmills.

You haven't actually visited the town yet, but judging by its size it would make sense for it to have at least one skilled worker each in cloth, wood, stone, and metal. To get fantastic work done, you would have to either get lucky or find a specialist.

Magic exists, but it's quite rare. You've personally encountered a few magical trinkets (a ring that produces a dim light when commanded, a music box that sings), and you once saw a knight who, according to rumor, had a magic suit of armor that provided him equivalent protection to full plate at a tenth of the weight. He just looked like a bog-standard knight to you, though.

>How do our assets compare to those of other princesses we know of? How numerous are our rivals? What well-established strategies need we be wary of- would it be out of the question, for example, for someone to know that we were coming of age, would likely use our inherited estate, and have already planted their agents there in order to cause us no small embarrassment at being captured before we ever get settled?

Your parents are solidly in the middle of the bell curve in terms of wealth and influence. Most nobles you encounter are comparable to them in power. The full scale of plausible wealth levels runs from about one quarter of your family's, to four it - but each of those extremes only represents one noble in one hundred. Still, there is no enforced even playing field by any means.

Your rivals are numerous, and spread out over a nation-state sized area chosen - unofficially, of course - as neutral ground. Any Princess who came of age this year will most likely settle somewhere in this greater area.

Planting agents would be completely with the guidelines of the affair. Generic strategies include anything from storybooks, a sneaky, undetected abduction from the victim's own chambers being the most standard. Of course, the most creative kidnappings are the most memorable, so convoluted thinking is encouraged.

5Copper!OcWN4aulz6 2011/01/31(Mon)19:27 No. 276944 ID: e85269
File 129653081972.jpg - (8.09KB , 320x240 , 24_10.jpg )

>>276896
so if i got it right, we are peach, bowser and mario in one.

well thats tought. id like to begin with:
>name
Dorothy Soldano
>signature frilly dress color
black with white streaks.
>hairstyle/color
see pic =3
>in character knowledge questions
so what other possible cottages we have sighted on the way in? is there a map? can 100 gp lasts us 3 till the end of the trial? what is the tower look like?
>course of action
exchange dresses with the maid. investigate the tower's surrounding while the helpers check the tower and make it worth living on.

>>276944
>so if i got it right, we are peach, bowser and mario in one.

Peach and Bowser, sure; how Mario, though?

>exchange dresses with the maid.
Clever. For the duration of our trial, we pretend to be a maid and our maid pretends to be us, as a last-ditch defense mechanism against any kidnapper clever enough to penetrate our defenses but not clever enough to have gotten a portrait for reference.

>>276896
Where can we go about acquiring more agents? One peasant isn't going to get us a lot, and frankly we'll need a lot more resources than a hundred gold in order to do something truly legendary. Although when we start kidnapping our rivals, we'll also be able to start looting their estates and thereby gain more cash to work with, I suppose.

>>276948
theres a city nearby. and we tecnically only need one princess, we shouldnt make a huge lesbian orgy so soon.

we could always send "the maid" in a quest. maybe we can even forage for food in the forest to cut expenses. and if "the princess" gets kidnapped, we can always send "the maid" to rescue her '-' its like a weird wapanese dating sim! without the dating! and not from wapan!

i also noticed we have no apparent skill set. we know how to use a rapier? thats actualy nice, but we may have issues with wildlife. theres a forest nearby, but we would need a crossbow to game there. do we know how to use a crossbow? would we need one to make a climb set anyway?

then theres our posessions. the 100gp may be hidden within the tower to prevent petty thieving, but the tower deed looks like a key item for some odd reason. if we are by DnD rules, we can live nicely for a year spending something close to 30 silvers a day total. this is a lot of booze, meat and clothes anyway.

lastly with a better description of the surroundings, we can start to plot for some princessnappings and princess defense.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/01/31(Mon)20:19 No. 276964 ID: c00b0d
File 129653395773.png - (46.63KB , 406x303 , mapmorelikecrap.png )

>so what other possible cottages we have sighted on the way in? is there a map? can 100 gp lasts us 3 till the end of the trial? what is the tower look like?

Your understanding of the immediately surrounding area is based on a combination of your mother's explanation and your trip. You arrived on a ship, and after landing were taken by coach down the road, which went along the coast for a while before heading off in the opposite direction from the small town, making the last mile or so of your trip by far the slowest and bumpiest. The driver of the coach, after checking to make sure that everything was in order, has already departed. You do know that if you follow the road in the other direction, you eventually reach a properly sized city.

You can survive on 100 GP until the end of the trial. You will be here for 12 months. Paying Ror costs one-half GP per month, and paying Amelia costs 1; this month is covered. Your own immediate survival expenses (food, maintaining appearances) will add up to roughly 2 GP per month, though you can spend more or less if you choose to. However, you're not here to survive, you're here to perform as impressively as possible.

Judging by the tall, narrow windows (two on the front and two on the back), the tower is four stories tall. It's about twenty feet in diameter, and has a pointed, tiled roof. There are some creeping plants growing around the base, but the outside seems to have held up fine.

>Where can we go about acquiring more agents?
The small nearby town seems to be an obvious first place to look.

>investigate the tower's surrounding
While you're still deciding exactly how to proceed, an immediate glance at the surrounding area shows a 75 foot clearing around the tower, after which pine trees start to appear, growing more dense the further you look. The "clearing" is only a clearing in comparison - it's a mess of short shrubs and tall grass. Hidden underneath it is a simple stone walkway leading to the tower's door.

>For the duration of our trial, we pretend to be a maid and our maid pretends to be us,
This is a high risk, high reward plan. On one hand, it's a fantastically good defense. On the other, if it becomes public knowledge that you spent a year living as a servant to your servant, it's possible your reputation would be better off if you knocked on someone else's door and asked politely to be put in the dungeon.

It's a feasible plan, though. Amelia is about your size.

>we have no apparent skill set.
You are quite well educated, as every young lady ought to be. Your understanding of art, music, fashion, etiquette, and other polite subjects are absolutely cutting edge. You are also a decent athlete, with experience in horseback riding and fencing. You have used a bow before, but it's not your strength. You could learn with practice.

On the subject, Amelia's skills include the ability to solve minor problems without doing anything visible, as well as light housework. She is also nearly as knowledgeable as you on all subjects relating to managing your estate, and is competent enough to make decisions for you should you not be available, even though you'd never admit it in public.

Ror is very big.

>>276964

We should prepare our tower and dungeon, and then gather intelligence on near-by rivals. We may want to try kidnapping a rival princess by posing as a servant to gain entry to an enemy princess' tower.

Or prepare for something completely out of left field. Namely gaining effective control of the testing area, declaring yourself Queen, taking a lesbian bride, and starting up a tradition of adopting and designating the most skilled peasant girl you can find as your heir.

>>276964
>This is a high risk, high reward plan. On one hand, it's a fantastically good defense. On the other, if it becomes public knowledge that you spent a year living as a servant to your servant, it's possible your reputation would be better off if you knocked on someone else's door and asked politely to be put in the dungeon.
Well... we could avoid being an actual servant. We pretend to be a bodyguard, she dresses as a princess, and then we hire new maids from the village and tell them that she's the real thing. There's not nearly as much shame in that if it comes out, and bodyguards are pretty classic for princesses to have in this sort of situation.

Anyway, let's not worry about this subterfuge until after our tower is cleared. Get in there and clear it warily, floor by floor, so that we can move on to the interesting things like plots and plans.

Update being drawn slowly. Rolled for appearance out of the options presented.

>>276890

I vote for this, except instead of a normal dress she should just wear a bikini.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/01(Tue)00:34 No. 277049 ID: c00b0d
File 129654925448.png - (67.20KB , 640x480 , entry.png )

You (Clarissa von Eupersberg) enter the tower, with Ror taking the lead, and Amelia immediately behind you. Inside, there is what was once a tastefully decorated entry area, which is now a dusty mess. Some of the tiles in the floor are cracked. It is obvious that no one has been here for quite some time.

Further exploration shows a spiral staircase beyond a second door opposite the entrance. Above you is a dining room. Anything small has long since been looted, but the table and a few chairs are still in working order. The next story may have functioned as the servants' wing. It is more austere, and has the remains of several bedrolls strewn about. The top story is in the worst condition. The bed once had a canopy. The wardrobe once had doors. The rugs, at one point, had not been chewed beyond recognition by moths. You quickly exit.

There is also a level below the ground. There are a few broken crates that once contained food there, as well as a wood furnace and a small barred cell. The chain to hold the bars shut lies discarded on the ground, and both it and the bars are rusty. There is no lock.

Seeing your tower in such a state is a bit depressing, but you can't ignore the potential it has. You have some plans in the back of your mind to recruit some more help from the nearby town, as well as gathering intelligence on potential rivals and preparing your tower. However, you have not decided on exactly what to do next. It's not quite noon yet, fortunately, so you have plenty of daylight left to get a few starting accomplishments done.

Not only is the old dress switcharoo a high-risk strategy, it is also an obvious one. How about you both wear the same clothes. Dress or practical, buy two of each and change simultaneously. It would make immediate identification much harder.


How much would tower remodelling cost? You need to do some cleaning and maintenance anyway, so some added sneakiness might not be too much of a hit. Enclose the current spiral staircase, and add another wrapping around opposite it to make a double-helix. Have the main staircase (facing the entrance) lead up to the third floor where a replica of your room is made (where Amelia sleeps). Walking around to the back of the tower at the ground floor (or better, the basement) and taking the other side of the helix takes you to the fourth floor and your actual bedroom.
Adding mezzanine floors in between existing floors would be rather difficult, so the second staircase might need either one-way concealed doors into the other floors, or be entirely blocked off from all but the top floor.

>How much would tower remodelling cost?
You could probably pay one worker 2 GP to do the job, taking about two months from start to finish; adjust the price and time by the number of workers you hire. You confer with Amelia just to be sure, and she confirms your guess. However, the exact numbers would be based on your negotiation with the specific workers in question. You might be able to get a significant discount on monthly wages if you promised to hire the workers for the full year.

Well, Clarissa may need extra labor for the entire year to make proper trap and dungeon upgrades.

Do the abductions have to be done with no neutral witnesses? For instance, can someone just beat up your man and nab you in the middle of the street in town, or do they have to actually manage to kidnap you when there aren't witnesses all over the place?

>>277049
Yipe, that's a big dress. If at all possible, I suggest changing into something easier to move in and less expensive to repair for the duration of the trial.

we shouldnt hire workers for so long, they may become a liability since they can be bribed.

well, it seems we should simply share our dresses with the maid. lets hope anyone peeking wont be too confused to understand whats happening.

>>277084
this is a good idea but it would require new dresses. we should consider that 50 GP are spend, about 40 from the yearly expenses and 10 that we should use to refurbish, repair and lay traps on the tower. lets save what we can for possible bribes and whatever tools we may require.

>>277078
we will most likely need to do that ourselves. any trap we lay will be laid by a regular worker that can simply get drunk enought to speak of it. any nearby princess looking for a big target could hear of the traps, and be halfway to defeat us.

send Ror to the city to buy furniture to make at least beds still today. we may need generic goods asides food like table utensils, ropes, digging utensils and poles.

oh a axe as well. lets try to use the pines as wood source. does amelia uses any weapon in particular?

>>277088
>we will most likely need to do that ourselves. any trap we lay will be laid by a regular worker that can simply get drunk enought to speak of it. any nearby princess looking for a big target could hear of the traps, and be halfway to defeat us.

Other secure facilities have this problem too. It's solved by having different men work on different parts of the trap independently and then assembling the final product ourselves. We can still use the laborers to make the parts.

>Do the abductions have to be done with no neutral witnesses?
Ideally, but you and your potential kidnappers are more important than any local law enforcement. If you have a reputation for openly causing trouble, your relationship with the locals will suffer, and your underlings may be targeted by law enforcement as well.

>this is a good idea but it would require new dresses.
You do have one set of exercise clothes, as previously mentioned. It's essentially a jumpsuit. You aren't accustomed to wearing it all of the time, though.

>>277098
I am the witness person. My question was more asking if we would just get jumped in the street if we went to town with our entourage, or if people were supposed to be sneaky about it.

It is always better for us to negotiate in person, and our whole dress plan is worthless if we have to send our maid to go talk and she gets instantly captured. We can't have our big dummy finding good hands.

>My question was more asking if we would just get jumped in the street if we went to town with our entourage, or if people were supposed to be sneaky about it.
It's unlikely that anyone would openly attack you in public. It's allowed, but it lacks style - and style is the goal more than having a standing room only dungeon is.

In fact, it's normal for Princesses undergoing their trial period to make public appearances (that are carefully planned to be safe and appear spontaneous) as a sort of show of force. As an example, your mother maintained a high profile during her trial period without being kidnapped. While her other accomplishments were minimal, this is enough to earn her polite, tacit approval should the subject come up.

>>/questdis/340410

>>277093
the only issue left is that it will be obvious its for us. i think theres a solution for it, ror can pick the pieces still in the nearby town.

>>277112
oh yeah, the main goal is to be tawdry.

i suppose if we up the tower conditions in 1 month we should get attention like mom didnt. the problem is if we do have a nearby princess on her trial, we will get targeted real easy.

i think i have a course of action, we should visit the nearby town. this will be a almost win-win scenario, since our visit is unexpected and it will allow us to gather information about the nearby princesses somewhat unharmed.

if we do find a potential target, we would need to move quick for a princessnapping and tower trapping. if we dont, its almost certain we can take our time secretly refurbishing the tower and making appearances like mom did.

>does amelia uses any weapon in particular?
No, she has no combat training or experience whatsoever.

Votes counted, update coming Wedensday night Pacific time. As usual, any suggestions between now and then will break ties, but only for things I haven't drawn.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/03(Thu)18:19 No. 278807 ID: f138b3
File 129678596387.png - (48.96KB , 310x472 , disguise.png )

You're certain that you want to use Amelia as a decoy. After some thought, you put all of them together. You change into your outdoor wear, stash your crown in your coat, and head into town, telling Amelia to wait at a distance. After making a beeline for the shop district, you quickly find a tailor. While they mostly do custom work to order, they do have a few things that fit your shopping list. You buy up everything that could pass for what you're looking for (0.2 GP) and head straight back to Amelia, where you swap clothes.

The disguise seems to work. You still aren't exactly inconspicuous, but your group attracts much less attention than you're used to, and people don't seem to distinguish between you and Amelia.

By talking to townspeople in the business district, you are able to track down a skilled mason who would be happy to work for you. He charges 1 GP per month, and judging by his past accomplishments he could hide a second staircase in two months. He also has ten underlings available for hire, each for 0.5 GP per month. They are unskilled, but under his supervision they can get as much done as he can.

A few other townspeople direct you to the town's engineer. He admits that traps aren't his strong point, but he's willing to lower his usual prices a bit to compensate. He is curious as to the details of what you had in mind -- what you want the traps to do, where you want them installed, and that sort of thing. When you comment on this, he points out that he can't really build something unless he knows what it is first.

You also stop by the general store. You browse the various common items available and compare them to your list.

Amelia, speaking for both herself and Ror, asks permission to spend a few minutes in the open-air market loading up on food from their own funds. You browse the various stalls yourself as well.

On your way out of the business district, you note the location of a blacksmith and carpenter. You haven't thought of anything for them to do currently, but they aren't going anywhere.

In the town square you find a notice board, with many recent postings. It contains advertisements seeking:
-a manual laborer at the inn (0.5 GP/month)
-warriors to kill a nest of giant spiders in a basement (0.5 GP)
-tenants for an unoccupied cottage (0.5 GP/month)
-a wagon driver for a caravan from Arbormount (your current location) to Redvale (presumably the city that lies in the other direction) (0.3 GP)
-a lost dog

>Course of action. if any, regarding:
>Mason and underlings
>Engineer
>Utensils, plates, ropes, shovel, hatchet, bedclothes (0.1 GP)
>Food: Budget (5GP will buy you what you're used to in terms of quality), type (if you have a plan more specific than "buy things that look good"), and amount (you need not buy an entire month's worth of food in one go if you have another plan)
>Blacksmith/carpenter
>Job board
>Other

>>278807
Hire the mason and a full crew. Get the entire tower repaired and put into top condition, plus the second staircase, and expand the underground rooms to include a more impressive and secure jail. Also make sure that the grounds are cleared and look good; the masons may not be ideal for this aside from external repairs but we can hire a gardener or something. The idea behind hiring as many people as possible is to get the work done quickly; also, if the mason supervising really means that the half-gold hires can do as much work as him, then it's financially sound to hire more people for less time because it'll lower the average cost per worker. You shouldn't even need them for a month- a week should more than suffice for this job.

We're going to need to furnish our tower somehow. Preferably with decent-quality materials. Look into it.

>We're going to need to furnish our tower somehow. Preferably with decent-quality materials. Look into it.

You investigate the carpenter's workshop. His work is good, and he seems to have a decent eye for aesthetics, even if his products are a little bit less ornate than what you are used to.

For furniture, he charges 0.1 GP for every 5 square feet of boards used, minimum 0.1 GP per item.

He's also willing to repair - functionally and aesthetically - your table, bed, and chairs for 0.2 GP.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/05(Sat)00:22 No. 279199 ID: f138b3
File 129689416874.png - (115.37KB , 800x1200 , floorplan.png )

This is your tower's current floorplan.

B: The basement contains a small cell with rusty iron bars, some fragments of wood, and a stove. Stairs lead from it to the inner door on the first floor.

1: Essentially empty. At the bottom is the exit to the outside. At the top is the door leading to the staircase encircling the inner room.

2: The entrance and exit, connected to the staircase, is at the top. There are four windows connected to the outside as well (passing straight through the staircase, with matching slits on the outside). There are three chairs, a beat up table, and an empty, dented wooden cabinet here.

3: The entrance/exit and windows are the same here as the lower floor. Other than some old rags, there is nothing of interest here.

4: There is a beat up wooden bed and wardrobe here, in addition to a similar exit and four windows.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/05(Sat)00:29 No. 279200 ID: f138b3
File 129689459586.png - (107.54KB , 800x800 , stairplan.png )

The top image is a cutaway, flattened version of your current staircase (wrapped around the rooms shown in the floorplan).

The bottom image is the current plan: an extra, sealed off staircase running from the basement to the top floor, followed by the destruction of the staircase leading from the third to fourth floor. Scribbles represent things to be demolished, and dotted lines represent things to be built.

If this makes you want to conduct any other business in the town, or cancel or modify your hiring of the full group of masons, this is your chance. However, the town isn't going anywhere, and the only thing you really need immediately is food. It's been a while since breakfast.

>>279200

Well, we need to worry about some other things, first. This is a town, with information. People have lived around here for a while. Is there anyone around willing to write up a map of the surroundings? Like, a good map? Preferably by one of the craftsman, instead of a peasant.

Food, of course. 5 GP is a little steep, (I assume per month?) until a successful coffer increase happens, she can live off of 2, maybe 2.5 GP.

Being relatively unknown, (I assume,) one can get away with not having traps set up, for now. Simple amenities would be great, though. A table or two, utensils/plates/chairs for 3, stuff like that.

But, we need to know where our first target is going to be, no reason to leave a potential enemy unwatched for a while if they might use that time against us.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/05(Sat)02:10 No. 279227 ID: f138b3
File 129690065810.png - (42.01KB , 400x400 , mapmorelikeok.png )

>>279203
>Like, a good map?
You find a man who can read and write and doesn't smell. His map (0 GP, rounded down) confirms everything you know (the road, the coast, the forest, and your tower), as well as pointing out the farms to the east, and a hunter's lodge to the south. Apparently the farms' population and area equal the city's. He also confirms that the road back towards the coast eventually leads to Redvale, a larger settlement.

>But, we need to know where our first target is going to be, no reason to leave a potential enemy unwatched for a while if they might use that time against us.
Casually making conversation with the townspeople about frilly dresses and crowns gets no results -- and seeing someone dressed up as royalty is a memorable, gossip-worthy event, even in a proper city. The other Princesses must either be lying low, not in the immediate area, or still on their way.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/05(Sat)18:14 No. 279418 ID: f138b3
File 129695847015.png - (30.97KB , 268x433 , toweroutsideday1.png )

The mason is quite pleased, and promises to show up at first light tomorrow with his full crew.

You buy the minimum amount of equipment you think you need at the general store. You are now the proud owner of plates and utensils, a shovel, a hatchet, sheets, and 50 feet of rope (and the proud owner of -0.1 GP as well). Your current furniture is usable for now.

At the market, you load up on some basics - flour, sugar, a few root vegetables, and some common spices. They should last you the month, and will be easy to store without having to worry about spoilage.

You get back to your tower just before dark. Amelia fires up the basement stove -- which you discover vents through the roof above the top story of the tower, and provides a small amount of heat to each room -- and prepares dinner. Once night has fallen, everyone settles into their sleeping areas.

Overall, not a bad start.

In the morning, Amelia has some delicious breakfast cakes waiting for you when you come downstairs. The masons arrive shortly after with carts full of stone blocks and tools. Their leader greets you as his men split up into teams, with one preparing stone blocks, one hauling them, and one installing them, with very little idle time for each group.

The next time you are out of earshot of the others, Amelia approaches you.

"Milady, I would be glad to take on any tasks or responsibilities that you deem appropriate to my station. I am concerned that you might needlessly worry yourself over managing details that are beneath your notice."

>GP: 96.8, counting debts
>orders for Ror
>orders/task delegation for Amelia
>course of action for self
>other

>>279418
Hrmm. Actually, here's one idea: Maybe ask around to see if high-quality foodstuffs are consistantly sold to anyone. Princesses would be used to such things, and so perhaps we could track them by that? And, of course, we may well have to make the sacrifice of lowering our own standard of living a bit to defend against that same thing.

since amelia is a maid and thus of less suspicious case she gets tagged, i belive she would be perfect to hunt for spies amongst the workers.

just making friends now will work. later on their gossip may feed us information anyway.

oh how is the moat? still non useable, i guess?

>oh how is the moat? still non useable, i guess?
It's more of a two foot dent in the ground than a moat right now.

>>279431
The problem is that we don't have a wide network to gather information in- just this town, and who knows how many other princesses will even be anywhere near here.

Amelia, as our only servant who is both smart and known to be loyal, is also the only one other than ourself that we can feasibly send out scouting. At the same time, having no maids at all would be somewhat unfortunate. Let's have her find another pair of maids/young women who might become maids if trained (that we can pay less than her) in town and employ those too, so that we can deploy Amelia more flexibly in the future.

Getting a second bruiser type might be good too, but it's less of an immediate priority at the moment, I think, since we're still in the very early stages of the game.

I would like to get a dedicated spy/scout in our employ, or even start on building a decent network to keep eyes on everyone- what could be a greater coup than kidnapping everyone else's kidnapped princesses out from under their noses? It would be awesome, definitely build a name for us- but doing that will be difficult. Still, it'd be worthwhile to get started, and that means sounding out potential agents.

>Getting a second bruiser type might be good too,
Ror is less of a bruiser and more of a general laborer. You've seen him knock down another peasant in a dispute over something you didn't bother investigating, but he's a mediocre stand-in for a dedicated guard (or offensive fighter, for that matter) in your opinion.

>>279446
Well shit, then, we definitely need a dedicated guard. If there's no one at all to stop a princess rich enough to have entered the contest with a guard or three from walking in and just seizing us by force... then one of them will do just that. Sure, it's not terribly creative or impressive on their part, but it would disgrace us for incompetence and allow them to eliminate a competitor.

Find a guard. Possibly two guards, so that one can guard while the other sleeps.

>Find a guard.
How, specifically?

>>279452
Actually, this goes for the attempts to get a spy network, too.

>>279452
Hell if I know. One would think that knowing how to effectively recruit competent help would fall firmly within the skillset of most princesses. Or those who manage their estates, like Amelia.

>>279455
Normally yes, but you're disconnected from your usual network. The only option that springs to mind is the job board, but "Guard/spy wanted" is a bit noticeable, even if you don't mention the specifics.

You could go for quantity over quality (hire unskilled grunts), try bars and inns for travelling mercenaries, or try the hunter's lodge to the south of the town.

>>279454
Establishing a spy network is a trickier and more delicate job. Once we've got a couple other maids, I think we might want to put Amelia on figuring out that job full-time, since she's loyal.

My guess on how to start would be going around town and meeting with people, being friendly and dropping hints that you would be interested in knowing any news that comes up. Pay only in promises until someone starts giving you information, then do something like buying drinks while they tell you things- inexpensive but effective as a reward for low-level people passing rumors and general news.

Of course, that only works for one town at a time. Once she has a good handle on that, get someone else in town- an innkeep or tavern owner, those are usually centers of news anyway- to agree to pass along anything interesting that comes to their ears in exchange for a fee or other considerations, tell other contacts in town that they can share anything interesting there, and move on to the next town to do it again.

Ideally your second level of contacts would communicate with a central location that isn't our tower fairly quickly and frequently- messenger pigeons are ideal but expensive and tough to set up; actual messengers would be more likely, or possibly using something like peddlers who travel between towns, or whatever else people normally use to send letters between towns and rely upon the presumed innocuous nature of the letters for security.

The details would likely have to be worked out as they go, but there's a basic plan for building a basic spy network. Hopefully someone else can help with polishing it up.

If it starts going well, Amelia can pick up an assistant after a few months and start training her as a higher-level agent, who knows both how to set up more networks and gets trained on how to observe supply shipments, assess people, etc. and know stuff about estates based upon that- Amelia should know all these things already as someone skilled in managing estates. But that's getting ahead of ourself, I think.

How about forming a cover business? A newspaper would have reason to employ reporters and journalists (a much less suspicious job board post than 'spies wanted'), and not only would give you access to a (relatively) unsuspected spy network, but allow you to control information flow to other princesses. And provide some extra capital.

A newspaper for who? Can the peasants even read? Do printing presses even exist?

id like to remember that our current expenses put us at about 40 GP left by the end of the year. making a company to earn money could work well, but remember that it will attract attention to us and will need investment. however, effectively handling a spy network trhu a newspaper sounds appealing, even if too expensive to maintain, and a victory by itself. im hoping the masses can use newspaper as well, considering the drama that the trials are, there could be a lot of space to work with.

amelia will have to handle the delicate work of spying. she will have to befriend people at the town and hope that good things come out of it. her cover isnt supposed to indicate we are on the trial nor attract attention to her to the point of being fed false information. i belive the best bet is for us to pass as our mother, on a grief vacation due to the failure of her daughter, us. misfeeding, deceit and a appealing dramatic story in one, i cant think of a more mary sue way to go.

ror will fall trees at least to sustain our own need for firewood. i am pretty sure we can use him as a worker, but as it comes, WE are the only one armed AND with a weapon. IF we are intending to hire a guard, it will have to be by indication of mother, that may know of actual trhustworthy people. anything else will either attract too much attention or actualy backfire.

so we will begin solo trainning until we figure out how to get money or a trustworthy guard. since we already have a rapier, getting a small concealable dagger to work as a main gauche sounds about good.

sending a message to mother asking for information would be cheating?

How long as the Trial tradition been going? Your average villager may be used by now to random sudden arrivals with odd customs, and can spot a princess a mile off. Best not to assume you are still undetected.
>IF we are intending to hire a guard, it will have to be by indication of mother, that may know of actual trhustworthy people
This is a pretty good idea for a vetting process.

We need to think about potential sources of income as well. Income means we can spend more, and have more options in the trial.

Are we near any rivers? Or any hills that get a decent wind across the top?

>sending a message to mother asking for information would be cheating?

Nothing is cheating, really. Asking for parental help isn't even frowned upon -- remember, they funded you, and the playing field isn't even. Recommendations for employees fall under the same category that money does.

You can send a letter in the town, but it will take at least two weeks before you get a response.

>Are we near any rivers? Or any hills that get a decent wind across the top?
The only bodies of water, not that it's exactly relevant to this line of questioning, are the ocean and the groundwater that your well pumps from.

On the subject of hills, you can take your pick. The surrounding area is far from flat, so if you wanted to set up a windmill, you could have your choice of distances from your tower and the town. You'd have to cut down a few trees to build on them, though.

>A newspaper for who? Can the peasants even read? Do printing presses even exist?

The average peasant is illiterate. Then again, the average peasant lives out in the fields; a third of the population in the parts of the town you bothered to look at could benefit from a newspaper. Printing presses exist and are an acceptable for you to use. A newspaper would blend in better in a larger settlement like Redvale, however.

>>279697
A windmill would be a great idea. Not only will the local populace be grateful for another place to grind their wheat, but it would generate a source of income in the harvest season. A fairly large one I would think. Finally, this would be a way of showing your competence, improving the infrastructure of an area shows that you have the acumen for ruling on at least some level. And finally, you could hook the windmill up to a rotary printing press as well allowing you to churn out copies faster.

we shouldnt "double invest" in something specialy if it will require so much GP. maybe later when we get enougth GP. alas having a income only on harvest season sucks.

send a letter to mom asking for reliable guards that are on the surrounding. im sure it will fail because we are being too specific, but its better to be safe that sorry.

i liked the idea of becoming self sufficient. maybe we can return home with 200GP. a small business company could work even to hide our identity.

so, how hard would it be to get a press here and delivery boys to the nearby cities? we would need to look for customers and journalists somehow, it would be a long term investment to make a journal to cover 2 or 3 cities so soon.

>>279708
wait i think i got it.

a publishing company. this would downgrade what we can do with information but should be a safer means of getting money.

eventually when we get a steady supply of customers possibly from out of town we can make the journal.

>>279712
In that case a windmill hooked up to a rotary printing press is a damn good idea. (You know, the windmill powers the printing press that's set up with a rotating barrel with the movable type on it? Just need to feed the thing paper and ink?) An expensive and complicated start up, but it would bring down publishing costs a TON, letting us undercut any existing publishers, or simply have a huge profit margin.

>>279714

Windmill to flywheel to press is a better set up, but I agree with the idea in general. Besides, newspaper presses can be used to print fliers, circulars, and other sorts of literature. Make it a newspaper with an attached publishing business.

>>279697
>long message transit time
>land covered in tall towers
IT'S CLACKS TIME.
Has the benefits of information control, along with access to many, many towers. Plus huge profit potentials even after the trial.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/08(Tue)17:22 No. 280343 ID: 52599b
File 129721453244.png - (43.11KB , 405x317 , engineerproposal.png )

You tell Amelia that her job for the day is to investigate the group of stoneworkers, while using any task, real or imaginary, as an excuse to be around the tower. After that, she is to travel into town, investigate any suspiciously expensive food purchases, and acquire some contacts. Upon hearing this, she looks up from the floor, nearly making eye contact, but in a split second she composes herself. Amelia gives you a curtsy that is slightly more enthusiastic than usual and exits.

You tell Ror that his job for the day is chopping down trees. This is business as usual for Ror, who nods and picks up the hatchet on his way out.

It's not high on your list of things to do, but you spend about and hour practicing basic rapier maneuvers on your own. It doesn't compare to having someone to spar with, but when you're done you do feel a bit less rusty. You manage to get some good practice in on your basic balance, as well as your draw speed.

On the way to the town, you think about setting up a series of signal relay towers. It's a good idea -- the towers themselves wouldn't have to be very complex, and you could probably use some sort of flag code to actually relay the signals. There might be another way to relay signals, too, but nothing springs to mind immediately. You start taking mental measurements, keeping in mind how big a signal flag can reasonably be. By the time you make it to the town, you're pretty sure you know the range of a relay tower. To get from Arbormount to Redvale, you need eight. You might be able to get away with using your windmill as a tower if you place it either immediately adjacent to the town, or on a direct path to Redvale.

First, you visit the engineer. He takes some notes as you describe what you want built. Finally, after putting his pen down, he points out the difficulties of building a windmill printing-press. He will need to supervise the construction at several stages. It's possible, but you're going to have to pay him up front, both for materials and sub-contracted skilled labor for the woodworking, construction, and the metalwork. He can arrange to have the whole thing done for 70 GP in one month - or for 40 if you can provide lumber on the spot. You immediately think about hiring a small swarm of unskilled laborers to speed the process up.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/08(Tue)17:22 No. 280344 ID: 52599b
File 129721455816.png - (41.94KB , 353x247 , maids.png )

Next, you start your hunt for a couple of maids. They need to be decent looking, but in a way that emphasizes your looks in comparison. Also, they need to be smart enough to take hints and accomplish tasks with minimal direction. Actual skills required are minimal. After wandering around for a bit, you find a couple of qualified volunteers (0.5 GP per month, each).

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/08(Tue)17:23 No. 280345 ID: 52599b
File 129721458660.png - (46.47KB , 405x331 , daggeroptions.png )

You make a brief stop at the blacksmith to ask about parrying daggers. He can make you a standard parrying dagger for 0.5 GP in two days, or a spring loaded trident dagger for 3 GP in four. The trident dagger isn't really any better at parrying, but if you do manage to parry, it tends to keep the other weapon out of the remainder of the fight.

Finally, you stop by the carpenter's workshop to ask for an estimate on a minimal relay tower. The carpenter listens to your description, and assuming you only want a framework, a ladder, a spot to sit, and a small amount of space for equipment, he can build a tower for 12.4 GP, counting the expense of traveling to remote locations with materials. When you point out that you might be able to provide materials on-site, he lowers the price to 8 GP, which covers other materials, labor costs for him and his two apprentices, travel time, and the inefficiency of having to work outside of a workshop. Each tower would take four days to build, and can't be reduced to anything lower than two no matter how much extra help you hire.

>confirm or cancel hiring two lower-quality maids
>confirm or cancel hiring engineer to build a windmill/printing press
>confirm order of parrying dagger or trident dagger, or cancel
>confirm order of 8 relay towers, or 7 if you locate your windmill in one of their places
>other

the windmill already puts us on negative. we need a sampler design.

the relay towers are confusing me. why? they would cost 64 GP total.

and all of those projects are for a month? we definitively need to think this over.

i think the maids are a good idea, it will give amelia a good feeling of power over others.

oh the trident dagger is a yes for me. we need a sample printing press, and the price of a regular windmill.

i re-read everything. why relay towers? i dont get it.

>the relay towers are confusing me. why? they would cost 64 GP total.
They're essentially a peasant-powered telegraph. You could charge people money to send messages between Arbormount and Redvale in a fraction of the time they could by hand.

>the windmill already puts us on negative.
Only in the long term, and even then only if it doesn't make its money back.

>and all of those projects are for a month?
Give or take a few days, yes.

Hmm... maybe ask your parents for additional money? I mean, this setup would have a huge profit potential, it could simply be a 0% interest loan if they don't just want to GIVE us anymore money. And the signal towers are from the clacks towers thing. Basically just for rapid information exchange. Like allow us to command activities in the town without having to travel there.

>price of a regular windmill.
50 GP, or 20 if you can deliver usable lumber to the spot. The printing press on its own costs 20 GP, which isn't really reducible in any way. It's made of metal and individual bits of type are labor intensive.

>>280349
SO the concept of periodic payments with interest exists here? Or you just saying we'll be able to find venture capital of some form easily? Either is pretty good for projects.

>SO the concept of periodic payments with interest exists here?
Yes.

>Or you just saying we'll be able to find venture capital of some form easily?
For something smaller, yes. For something of this size, it would take some research.

Cost summary:
Printing Press: 20 GP
Windmill: 50 GP (20 GP with lumber provided)
Relay Tower: 12.4 GP (8 GP with lumber provided)
Parrying dagger: 0.5 GP
Trident dagger: 3 GP
Maid: 0.5 GP/month (x1 or x2)

You currently have 96.8 GP, with 38.5 of it reserved for upkeep costs throughout the year.

I say go for the windmill/printing press and do the towers on installment payments. If you can arrange for people to chop down the trees that is. (That ok with everyone?)

>>280362

Let's pick one, eh? It's bad enough that we are doing this instead of actually planning out a way of being the most beautiful princess in the land.

>>280384
We're a thoroughly mediocre princess. All we've got going for us that others lack is the voices in our head. Standing out in terms of beauty is pretty much a losing battle.

>>280357
Get maids x2, trident dagger, and do the windmill/printing press aiming for the lumber discount.

In the medium term, if we can turn that printing press into an excuse to have people search out the other princesses- and, if we're lucky, even conduct interviews with them and then publish/sell those interviews and overviews of how the princess wars are going- it could be awesome. And both highly lucrative and highly useful for our intelligence network. Far more so than merely passing messages faster, I think.

>>280389

+1 Trident, +1 both maids, +1 paper press, +1 windmill.

We're going to have to worry about pulping/paper creation, bindings, labour (skilled, no reason for expert book crafters,) stuff like that also. And a bunch of other stuff that was discussed in IRC.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/08(Tue)21:25 No. 280421 ID: 52599b
File 12972291469.png - (32.83KB , 268x433 , toweroutsideday2.png )

You put in the order for the trident dagger with the blacksmith, hire the new maids, confirm your desire for a windmill and printing press with the engineer (promising a supply of lumber on the site). You spend a few minutes working out specifics, and agree to schedule the start of construction the day after tomorrow, to give everyone time to get organized.

In anticipation of this, you will need some woodcutters on the location you agreed on with the engineer, just outside of town. If you start cutting down trees tomorrow, you should be able to present the builders with lumber the following day. While you probably only need three or four if you want to keep up with the builders' needs, you can probably speed up construction by having spare woodcutters do some heavy lifting when they aren't cutting wood.

When you arrive just before sunset, new maids in tow, you find yourself in possession of a medium sized log. The branches, chopped into manageable chunks, are in a neat pile by the stove. Ror is sitting on the log, his shirt off and the hatchet dangling from one hand.

The stoneworkers have managed to make significant progress without actually blocking access to any part of your tower. The last of them is on his way out. They've left some raw materials and one of their carts behind.

Amelia isolates you and tells you about her day immediately. In her opinion, the stoneworkers are safe. It's a family business, and the one you negotiated with is quite interested in keeping his sons and nephews employed. In other words, the group is nearly impossible to infiltrate. Unless someone has been buying out all of the workers in the town, you shouldn't have much to worry about from them.

The rest of her day was more interesting. Amelia started off by talking to food vendors in the open air market. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a young woman spending several GP on a small package at the spice vendor's stand. This is suspicious -- normally, anybody who could afford to spend so much in one place would live somewhere more exciting than Arbormount. Amelia tailed her at a safe distance back to a house in the richer area of town. She didn't get a good look inside, because she prioritized being inconspicuous, but she did catch a glimpse of two very expensively dressed young women through the window. She apologizes for saying this, as she assumes it is a mistake.

Amelia has little progress to report on the spy network. She did stop by various taverns to make as many friends as she could, but her efforts have not born fruit just yet. She tentatively mentions that she might be able to accomplish more with a budget -- less than 1 GP, in small coins, would be enough to have a significant effect.

>immediate actions
>number of wood cutters hired (0.5 GP/month each)
>adjustments on Ror and Amelia's to-do lists
>assignments for maids
>your own to-do list
>other

>>280421
You have 53.8 GP left.

>>280421
For a single day's efforts, Amelia did quite well. I'm willing to allocate a handful of gp to building a spy network over the next couple months, though I would expect Amelia to be able to work mostly on promises and flirting except when getting serious results from people she's actively recruited as informants. We will hopefully have plenty of money to throw around later; at the moment we're on a budget.

Amelia should keep focused on spying on people and building up a network for the next while.

Assignments for maids: Cook, clean, that sort of thing, naturally. Buy any sundry supplies we require in the course of whatever we're doing. As the construction project approaches completion, have them find out where we can locate the materials and labor needed to make this printing press concept work- hunting that stuff down is probably going to be time-consuming but not overly difficult. We can handle the actual purchases and negotiations ourselves.

Hire six woodcutters, if it'll speed construction; getting this going faster would be better. If they have

We should keep tabs on the construction project, and as we locate sources of materials and potential employees for the paper concept we'll need to be the one who heads up negotiations. It should be obvious, but do none of this dressed as a princess.

>>280485

In fact, on the matter of attire, it may be time to get some sensible business noble clothes. I think that would be the optimal guise while operating a newspaper for the locals. Simply state it's a trial run.

amelia will have to stay for at least 5 days to organize the maid's work. it may help to make things a bit more secretive as well.

we should give her the gold she needs. thats the butter of our bread after all...

we need ror to not only supply US with lumber but to also work on the tower. i am considering replacing the moot with something that may warn us of possible trespassers. a bell system of sorts. ror would be the one to either re-dig or cover the moat.

for now we really should get trainning apparatus. cant we use a dummy of sorts to practice?

oh yeah, amelia should be the one to hire the woodworkers. and we needed her to investigate the carpenter too.

damm. maybe we just need her to do everything. what can the princess investigate without calling too much attention? maybe the carpenters, if we appear as a second in command to the business we are trying to raise?

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/11(Fri)00:07 No. 280884 ID: 52599b
File 12974116301.png - (22.35KB , 504x209 , windmillpart.png )

You tell Ror to reduce enough of the log to firewood to last a while, then tell him to assist the windmill-site's six woodcutters and carpenters as needed. You also give him the lower priority assignment of building you a training dummy. You give Amelia roughly 0.5 GP in the smallest coins you have available. She promises to keep careful track of her purchases.

Over the next few days, you put in an order at the tailor's for a slightly more formal set of clothes (0.4 GP), find the best deal you can on paper and ink in bulk, send a letter back home asking about sources of reliable guards, and start looking into finding some literate help for your growing business.

Additionally, construction on the windmill starts; your six woodcutters, with intermittent help from Ror, are able to keep ahead of the carpenters' requirements, and help assemble the simpler components when they run out of their own work to do. Progress is good, and the windmill actually resembles the skeleton of a building. The head carpenter estimates that it is nearly half complete.

By the end of the week, your new clothes are ready, the stoneworkers are finished with their modifications, and you have managed to get a little bit of practice in with your rapier and new trident dagger. Ror's training dummy was built with minimal attempts to resemble a human, but it does let you get some valuable practice making precise strikes on a moving target. The inside of the tower is also looking much nicer, thanks to the labor of your new maids.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/11(Fri)00:08 No. 280885 ID: 52599b
File 129741168525.png - (47.37KB , 640x319 , dummy.png )

Amelia has given you daily intelligence reports throughout the week. While she did make an additional trip past the suspicious house, confirming a dress color (gold) and a hair color (red), she mainly focused on attempting to casually gain information from servants in conversation, without outing herself as a spy. Aside from confirming her suspicions on the budget of the wealthiest locals (much lower than what your suspected Princess' budget must be), she uncovered very little until today, when she undeniably struck pay dirt.

Today, Amelia went to a tavern and met a prominent local businesswoman's servant. A new neighbor had invited her employer to her home for lunch. The servant spent most of the encounter standing silently in the background with the host's two well-dressed female servants.

The detail Amelia was so excited about? The other woman had red hair, wore a gold colored dress, and wore a crown.

>52.9 GP remaining
>Build 3rd floor replica of your room for Amelia to sleep in, as originally planned
>alterations to anyone's standing orders
>personal to-do list
>other

A princess in town is newsworthy. That will give our girl reporter here an excuse to do a little more digging on the rival.

Who built the house the rival is staying in? If they're still around we may be able to get the floor plans.

Which princesses match that description anyway? Red hair isn't that common.

>A princess in town is newsworthy. That will give our girl reporter here an excuse to do a little more digging on the rival.
You can probably come up with some writer and reporter candidates before the windmill is finished construction. Any overall plans?

>Who built the house the rival is staying in? If they're still around we may be able to get the floor plans.
It's an ordinary house in the richer area of town (if more upscale, even in comparison to the neighbors), not custom built recently to be sure. The house is at least several decades old.

>Which princesses match that description anyway? Red hair isn't that common.
Red hair puts her place of origin very far to the North of your home, and somewhat far to the North of your current area. She might hail from the Ethusian region, which is distant enough to be little more than a name to you.

At least she isn't enjoying a home-territory advantage.

>>280895

Well, the masons that originally built it may still be around. If not, the previous owner or tenant may be.

>>280885
we shouldnt ad the fact that we got a princess on our doorstep. it may warn that we are a princess too!

we should begin planning the kidnapping. for the press, we should sell our printing services. when we get a bit on income we try our newspaper business.

we will have to look for journalists and writers as well. and their payment...

>>280885
Aha, Amelia does excellent work. Did she find out what the princess wanted with that local businesswoman, by the way? Always good to know one's rivals' plans.

Now we need to decide how to play this. Is it too early in the game for a kidnapping? We'd preferably come up with a good way to pull it off in style, but even without anything of the sort we'd at least quickly eliminate a nearby rival- and quite possibly gain her funds to work with in the process, allowing us to expand our operations proportionately and carry out more impressive acts later. I am wary of leaving any princesses at large in the immediate area, since our tower is far from subtle- we might as well have a target painted on our back. Besides, being successful at even a single relatively standard kidnapping would meet the minimum requirements for not shaming our family in this endeavor, since obviously many princesses are early victims and don't manage even that. We might as well get it out of the way quick.

Alternately, we could choose to play a more subtle game; keep an eye on her, and once our paper is up and running try to exploit her existence as an excuse to try and get our paper a reputation as a means by which any princesses can make announcements, brag about their accomplishments, and otherwise communicate with one another through a public and relatively safe venue. If we can successfully manage to get that kind of reputation the intel will keep pouring in throughout the entire year we'll have our pick of targets, probably make a lot of money, and be able to manipulate others' reputations as well. Not to mention that I would expect a certain level of international demand as kings and queens everywhere try to keep track of their darling daughters' progress or evaluate the relative worth of their sons' prospective brides.


Personally, I lean towards the latter path, at least for now; we don't really have the resources that we'd need to make our kidnapping a good one and aren't so desperate for money that we'll need to take risks for it. Keep an eye on the princess, and if she's hiring new people see if we can get a double agent planted- after all, we pretty much just picked up random maids in town; that's not exactly a high-security method. If she's equally foolish we could exploit that.

While that is ongoing, we'll need to make sure that our paper can start up as soon as the windmill is done. We'll need reporters (call it 4-5 to start), writers, and a distribution network set up, which probably means either using whatever transport network already exists (selling papers to merchants, who sell them as they go?) or creating our own (paperboys, messengers bringing papers between towns, etc.). We'll also need an editor to make the whole concept work; no one wants to read a poorly done paper.

Figuring out what is needed to make this work, and finding decent people to take up these jobs, is probably going to be a full-time occupation for a couple weeks. Present ourselves to our employees as a businesswoman/entrepreneur rather than a princess, obviously. Pay reporters on a per-story basis, pay scaled based on quality of the story- interviews with princesses get top dollar, human interest pieces get a bit of twine and a bottle cap. We can probably find decent reporters amongst the relatively young but fairly educated population- apprentices and such- while our editor should be someone more experienced.

>>280983
>see if we can get a double agent planted- after all, we pretty much just picked up random maids in town; that's not exactly a high-security method.
Thinking on that, best to keep an eye on our maids for a while. We may think we've got the drop on this 'new arrival', but best not to underestimate them.

Djierks!!VlZTV0LJAy 2011/02/12(Sat)20:44 No. 281201 ID: 52599b
File 129757229392.png - (28.79KB , 504x288 , windmill.png )

According to Amelia, the local businesswoman and the Princess talked about the weather, their shared neighbors, the ingredients and preparation techniques involved in their tea and sandwiches, and their health. Based on the story told by the servant, Amelia conjectures that the Princess was very knowledgeable with regards to her neighbors. She promises to speak to the servant again soon, as well as to find the previous owner of the house, as you recommend. Over the next week, she speaks to the servant several times, but uncovers very little.

The construction of the windmill continues on schedule, with the printing press complete a few days before the power supply is up and running. The project has gotten a fair amount of attention; windmills don't spring up outside of town every day. With the interest levels as high as they are, you should have more demand for grain processing than you have the capability to serve, assuming you use the windmill for its usual purpose. You calculate that the windmill will be able to grind enough grain to make you 0.5 GP each week. You also hear from several people interested in paying to publish their own work, as well as advertising in your paper, but the exact amount of money you can make there is a bit hard to quantify just yet. Regardless, the windmill and printing press finish on schedule, after another week of work.

During this week, you find a qualified editor -- a young man named Miles who is having trouble finding enough work as a scribe. You also find a pair of reporters -- a young man and a young woman -- who are literate, presentable, and willing to work on a sliding scale per-article basis.

After a few days of checking the mail, the letter you were waiting for arrives! Most of the first page concerns updates on local affairs, as well as questions about your experience so far. Then, the bit you were waiting for:

"I am quite sorry to hear that you are having trouble finding trustworthy underlings.

I have explained your situation to several of my trusted friends. One of them, the Baron John of Loxford, agreed that it was quite the unfortunate situation. The Baron suggested that his second son, who has been looking for an opportunity for real-world experience, would make a fine head of security for you. The arrangements are made, and he should arrive within a week after you receive this letter, giving you enough time to prepare for him.

You should be able to hire mercenaries with a wide variety of skills in Arbormount if you need additional security. If you are still concerned with infiltrators, take advantage of their unreliable nature -- hire unaffiliated underlings, then take them aside individually and offer rewards for reporting attempted bribes and betrayals by your other minions.

Love,
-Clarissa von Eupersberg III"

>Confirm hiring windmill operator (1GP/month)
>Confirm using printing press down-time to grind grain (0.5 GP/week)
>Preparations for John of Loxford II
>Tasks for Ror
>Additional tasks for Amelia
>Confirm hiring editor/reporters
>Assignments for newspaper employees
>Kidnapping plans, long term or short term
>Other

Miles would cost you 1.5 GP per month, by the way. It's rather a lot, but he seems confident that he can run whatever aspects of the paper don't interest you entirely on his own.

>Confirm using printing press down-time to grind grain (0.5 GP/week)
Ah, income. Wonderful.
>Confirm hiring windmill operator (1GP/month)
...apparently somewhat less income than initially apparent, but still some. Do both, since I assume that the former requires the latter.

>Preparations for John of Loxford II
A baron's second son is hardly up at our rank, but he's still someone of stature. Set aside a room in our tower for his use, make sure it's nice enough to not embarrass us. Our maids should be able to arrange it.

>Tasks for Ror


>Additional tasks for Amelia
She needs to be pulling in the intel and building up more contacts to pull in more intel, all the time. Being a spymaster- or just a spy- is a full-time job, and she needs to get more results than she has even if finding another princess so quickly was quite a coup. She needs many people feeding her information, and from more than just this town. She can draw some funds and start traveling around; within a month or so I would like to have informants working for us in either several more towns nearby or a significant city. Amelia needs to set this up, find people who will do spying work for us- or at least general passing on of gossip- without bleeding our purse dry. It's a big job and outside her training, but she's what we have- and if she does a good job at this and we do well in the trial, there's no way in hell she'll stay merely our maid once this is done.

>Tasks for Ror
I have no idea what to do with this guy. Something generally productive.

>Confirm hiring editor/reporters
Yes, definitely. Finding another couple reporters would be good, too.

>Assignments for newspaper employees
Miles' job is to make this newspaper concept work- hammer out all the details and bring them to us for approval. How often can we afford to print the paper? What can we charge for it? How many articles will that require, as compared to what we can expect on a per-reporter basis? How many independent people- writers and advertisers- can we expect to get contracts from on a regular basis, at how much money? All these problems fall on his desk. I would like to publish weekly if possible but that may or may not be feasible based upon the details.

Our reporters are getting sent out after being told they need to find a big story- or preferably one each. Our opening issue has to be a good one, with exciting news that will incline people to start reading it- otherwise the whole concept could flop. Ideally they'd track down a princess or two that's already pulled off an exciting kidnapping and get an interview about it, but I'm not picky- ANY big news will do. Tell them that we expect the princess contest to provide fairly reliable interesting news for the rest of the year, so they should get on finding places to get news on the topic, but we're not incredibly particular as long as whatever stories they bring in are both verifiably true- no yellow journalism allowed- and of interest to many people. As a side note, they might run into people during their travels who would like to try their hand at reporting as well; these people are to be told that a high-quality article will be considered an excellent resume.

>Kidnapping plans, long term or short term
I'm willing to put these on ice for now. Have Amelia set things up before she leaves so that someone will subtly keep an eye on that princess so that we'll know if she moves, is taken, or pulls something major, but for the moment let's mostly focus on setting up business and intel.


>Other
Aim to publish our first issue of the paper in 2 weeks. That means good initial stories in, advertising contracts arranged, resources for continued publishing secured, distribution methods and pricing established, all details accounted for- because after that we churn them out regularly, on either a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending upon what our resources can manage. This is a rather large project and we should bend our personal time to seeing that it goes on smoothly.

>ror tasks
how can we have issues getting ror a task? i just dont get it.

so far i belive we need to cover the moat. give ror some GP and let him buy trap parts, he should try his best to make a warning system on the moat's dig site. hopefully the baron's son will be able to use him more that we do.

>princessnappings
we may need to make it long term. we need to know the princess's routine. so far amelia has been questioning quite a lot, maybe we will need to get a better excuse as to why she has been snooping around.

also, if our enemy knows her villagers, we will have issues finding solid, trusthworthy work for the mill press and actualy snooping in her. worse of all, amelia is from outside so she already rings quite a lot of bells there, even more so for asking around.

afaik all of the newspaper and mill business may be by itself a way of her to gather info on us, so if possible, we should handle it the most professionaly de-atattched as possible.

the cool thing on this is that we may have already suceeded. a princess that sets a working business in record time is bound to make a tawdry tale.

>amelia's
she has been helping us train, hasnt she?

ask the carpenter for wooden weapons. its time for the student to become the teacher =3

wait, how much GP we have left?

we may need to delay something depending on the amount left. the trainning tools and trap implements can definitively wait, as long as amelia didnt got attention to us as a princess.

oh, how about amelia uses a disguise?

she can show up as a noblesman's maid, scouting for possible spectators for our newspaper business. this could get attention of us a little bit, and with the baron's son arriving soon, it will really look like it.

>she has been helping us train, hasnt she?
Amelia has been very busy spying. You've had whichever lesser maid was closest operate the training dummy for you.

>wait, how much GP we have left?
Your last expense (not shown) was paying the woodcutters for slightly over two weeks, which put you at 51.4 GP.

>>281422
thats a no on the sparring weapons then. we may need to wait for the baron son's to train properly.

seems we actualy have funds to pull out both business at once. the mill can grind at night too?

We need to make sure that Amelia remains loyal. Praise her every once in a while.

For printing press: Also begin printing some books that may be profitable. Religious texts are amazing sources of income and will earn you approval from the local church.

Good job everyone, now we control the press and public opinion. We may need to control the business elites next. Long term plan of course. Then we should get the church to support us.