(from www.infidelguy.com)
HotB: Forums!
John Wick Dot Com has Forums!
I’ll be using these for HotB playtesting. There are already two Houses playtest forums (IC and OOC).
If you’re in one of the two Houses playtest groups, make accounts. More later.
Strange, Part 3
I have a Mac Mini. It makes an adorable little sound when you feed it CDs. I can translate Mac to English.
“Feed me more CDs,” it says to me. (Stolen from Tom Waits.)
The CD she gave me goes into the Mac Mini. I’m half-expecting the thing to explode. It whirs. It says hello to the mysterious CD. Then, in my menu, my Mac Mini tells me I can read it.
There’s a .txt file and a .doc file there. The .txt file says, “Read me first.” I double click.
The document has four words and an e-mail address. That’s it. It’s a code. I know it. I decipher it in a heartbeat.
I close that and look at the .doc file. I know why she thought she needed my permission. But, she doesn’t. Not really. I stole it from Alex.
Double-click on the .doc. I read through it. When I’m done, I find myself smiling.
I open my e-mail and type in the address. I include only one word.
Yes.
“Someone Get a Doctor!”
You know those guys. Those “kiaido” guys. The ones who claim they can extend their “chi” and attack you with just a wave of their hand?
They even do demonstrations in their dojos with their young students, demonstrating how they can take the entire dojo out, just by pointing at you and shouting real loud.
Well, one of these guys put his money where his mouth was. He put up $5000 against anyone who doubted him.
This is where the MMA fighter steps up.
At the end of this very brief encounter, one guy is on the floor bleeding and the other never even got touched.
Guess which is which.
New (Dio!) Black Sabbath
I’m not much of an Ozzy fan. I like the first Black Sabbath album, but his solo stuff really didn’t do it for me.
Ronnie James Dio, on the other hand… oh hell yeah.
The new Black Sabbath: The Dio Years CD is on its way. The first single, “The Devil Cried,” is here.
METAAAAAAAL!!!
Strange, Part 2
She was seated next to the “New Age” section, her shoes beside her bare feet.
“I got this for you,” she said, showing me what she was reading, using the receipt as a bookmark. The Magus of Freemasonry. “I thought it was appropriate.”
“What are you listening to?” I asked her.
She looked down at her iPod. “Swordfishtrombone,” she said. She sang along.
and he holed up in a room above a hardware store
cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears
and he put a spell on some
poor little Crutchfield girl
and stayed like that for 27 years
I sat down. She took a sip. “You want anything?” she asked. I shook my head.
She put the book down, slid it across the little table to me. I picked it up. It felt heavy. I looked inside, found a CD.
“I’d like you to look at this,” she said, a wink ready at any moment.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something that requires your permission,” she told me. Then, she stood, gathered her drink and her iPod. “Let me know,” she said.
I watched her leave. The long, black skirt that I like. Then, she turned, came back. “Forgot my shoes,” she said. Picking them up, watching me watch her.
Strange…
In more ways than one. This in my Inbox:
Lord Strange,
Meet me tonight at (Ed: location omitted).
9:00 PM sharp.
Regarding a mutual interest.
Wear your magician. You will need it.
Warmly,VRD,
The Lady Fate
The Morning After
I’ve never had a hangover before.
First time for everything.
Erin go ouch.
Seasons, Part 3
Not as long this time, but still full of crunchy goodness.
Villages & Cities
Metropolitan areas like villages and cities require a little more attention than standard Regions. So, let’s take a look at them.
Villages
A Village is a small community of farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen, usually located near a river or another large body of water. As a Region, Villages are responsible for Production: turning Resources into Goods.
Turning Resources into Goods usually only takes one Season. Because Actions take place after Harvest, you can use the Resources you harvested last Season to produce Goods this Season. Any Goods produced this Season will be “harvested” as usual at the beginning of next Season.
So, to be clear, here’s an outline of how to turn Resources into Goods.
- During Spring Harvest, among my other Resources, I gather some Metals.
- During Spring Actions, I hand my Metals over to a Village to turn the Metals into swords and other weapons for my Personal Guard.
- During the Summer Harvest, the Metals I turned over to my Village are now swords and other weapons for my Personal Guard.
Like other Regions, Villages have ranks. Rank 1 Villages can only make simple Goods. As the Village increases in rank, it can create more sophisticated and stylish Goods. You can find a List of Goods at the end of this chapter.
A rank 1 Village has one Craftsman. He can produce one Good per Season. A rank 2 Craftsman can create two rank 1 Goods or one rank 2 Good per Season. A rank 3 Craftsman can create three rank 1 Goods or one rank 3 Good per Season. You see where this is going.
The rank of a Village is also indicative of its size. A rank 3 Village is much larger than a rank 1 Village. As the Village grows, the Craftsman grows as well. Whenever the Village gains a rank, its Craftsman gains a rank as well.
A Village’s size is also the limit on how good your Craftsmen are. You cannot have a rank 3 Craftsman in a rank 2 Village, for example. The size of the Village is the top rank of any Craftsmen in that Village.
A Village may only have one Craftsman.
Growing a Village takes one Season. It also requires a number of Lumber and Stone Resources equal to the current rank of the Village. Thus, you must spend 2 Lumber and 2 Stone and one Season to grow a Village from rank 1 to rank 2. This is considered the Village’s Season action. The Village is considered “grown” at the end of the Season.
A Village cannot grow larger than rank 3. To grow further means the Village becomes a City.
Cities
A City is a great asset to any lord. Much more productive than any Village, a City is the first true sign of high culture.
To create a City, you must transform a rank 3 Village into a sprawling metropolis. This requires 3 Lumber, 3 Stone and 3 Luxuries. The changeover takes place at the end of the Season.
Cities are automatically assumed to be rank 4. A City may have as many Craftsmen as ranks, although it cannot have more than one Craftsman per rank. In other words, a City may only have one rank 4 Craftsman, one rank 3 Craftsman, one rank 2 Craftsman, and one rank 1 Craftsman. All of them may take individual Season actions, changing Resources into Goods.
If you wish, you can also hire a Mayor for your City. The Mayor requires one Food and one Luxury per Year. Mayors can be bribed, but they can also use Season actions to quell Troubles. And Cities cause a lot of Trouble (as seen on the chart above).
A City can also have a Port. This requires a Port Master—one Food, one Luxury per Year—who looks after your busiest city quarter. The Port Master may change one Resource into any other Resource as a Season action. He also can be bribed.
By the way, each City also has a Thieves Guild. Neither your Mayor nor your Port Master can get rid of it. That’s something you have to do yourself. You can bribe the Guild for one Luxury per Year. If do, the City’s Troubles go down by one (from 3 to 2) and the Security of your City goes up by one rank.
Damn thieves. They’re everywhere.
The Advantage of Cunning and Bureaucracy
By now, you’re probably wondering why Cunning is so important to the Season. Well, let me tell you why.
Cunning and Bureaucracy are vital to managing a Domain. The ability to see the big picture, to forecast Trouble, to see the move within the move within the move. That’s Cunning. Bureaucracy, on the other hand, gets around all those pesky laws the Senate keeps passing, making it easier for you to do what you need to do without proper paperwork or procedure. And so, here’s how it works.
Your character’s Cunning is the number of additional Provinces he can manage alone. If you have a 4 Cunning, you can be the direct lord over five Provinces. Your Cunning + 1. That’s how large your Domain can be.
Meanwhile, Bureaucracy is the number of additional Season actions you can take. Yeah, I said that right. Additional Season actions. If your Bureaucracy is 3, you can take a total of 4 Season actions per Season.
HotB: Gettin’ Hitched
It’s true. Your character is probably married.
Most ven marry at the age of 16. Marriages are nothing more than contracts, peace accords, and land deals. The married couple seldom, if ever, meet before the wedding day.
I’ll be doing a big ol’ write-up about this later (in the Romance chapter), but until then, here’s what you need to know.
Your spouse can be an aspect. Doesn’t have to be. Making your spouse an aspect has obvious benefits (and drawbacks). Also, your spouse can take Season actions. Your spouse counts as a “second you” in terms of actions. Anything you can do, your spouse can do. So, while the Spy Master has his limitations and the Master of the Road has his, your spouse can do anything you can do.
(Anything you can do, I can do better…)
You also have to decide which of you is the “dominant” partner in the arrangement. If you are the dominant partner, the land belongs to you and your spouse is along for the ride. If your spouse is the dominant partner, you’re the one along for the ride.
The yvestra (dominant) takes care of the land. The land is the yvestra’s responsibility. Management, improvement, all that stuff. The yvestra makes all the decisions, has all the authority, has all the responsibility, has all the accountability.
The ytola (subservient) has no authority, no responsibility, no accountability. Also, the bureaucracy favors the ytola over the yvestra if that messy romance thing shows up and someone makes a stink about it. After all, the yvestra is supposed to be the responsible one, right?
Also, if the yvestra dies, a new yvestra is usually found (by the parents of the first one). If an ytola dies, the yvestra finds a new one. As far as the law is concerned, the ties to the old ytola’s family are cut–unless some manner of exception was made in the marriage contract.
I assume your lands are a combination of all the holdings you own and your spouse brought to the marriage.
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See what happens when someone asks a simple question? Geez. Need that Stafford Rule.