The Skirmish That Wasn't, and Windemere Crossing Organic Towns Month 5

After several weeks of missing our Saturday Skirmish, the stars finally aligned and we all got together. However, we got side-tracked by a couple of things. We were going to do a larger set, with 900 points per side using the One Page Rules. Alas, my partner & I only remembered that half of that was 450 points and then we split that so we only had 225-point armies that were going to be fielded. And then that discussion segued into a broader range of subjects and suddenly it was dinner time. And I had even set up a skirmish board ahead of time!

 The goat and goblin are an in-joke to the current Delve game we are playing: one of Fugh's (my Goblin King character) retinue/guards has been stealing goats to eat a couple of times. And a goat image now shows up on Owlbear.rodeo whenever our hapless Gookin (the Orc Killer Goblin) shows up. We are easily amused.

Anyway, it was a pleasant afternoon talking about a wide range of things, even though we definitely have some different views about a few things, it is always good to listen to other people. 

And back to Windemere Crossing. I've got a work buddy who may end up playing. We generated his half-Orc barbarian last week, and I can introduce him as one of the guards in the caravan that the characters all talked to. I'll have to dig through my notes and see what sort of secret I can give him that may lead to an adventure. As I left the guards mostly unspecified that works well I think for bringing in a new character. And having a small trade town full of people I've not even talked about, there is always room for more. 

Coming into month 5, we have two projects finishing up: we have a new pasture south of town towards the mountains, and our western gate is now complete! There will be some sort of minor celebration for the new gate. While I don't think they'll break a bottle of champaign over the bulwarks, at least some sort of day off for those hard-working laborers. The market expansion and cleanup is going well and should be completed next month. This will be outside the actual walls of the town: as originally designed as a garrison and outpost, it is not large enough. As the gates open east and west, it would be nice to have it on the route. Rolling one of my rune dice so that 1-2 is west, and 3-4 is east, they decided to add the market outside the western gate. Part of the construction for the gate included some extra walls for the new marketplace. While still open for the most part, there are some walls and buildings added that the regular merchants can use to lock up their goods. But because it is open, we may need to add more guards. Fortunately, the pasture adds food for 500 people, and as we have a bit less than that still, we can add more guards and expand out our city troops and guards. 

We already have a town guard of 4 (our two new guards from a couple months ago along with Sheriff Sprigbasher and deputy Newtonson, but we are going to add a swordsman group to the town military. Our barracks are filling up with the two squads. Not sure how many spearmen or swordsmen (and obviously may not all be men, or even humans). Which is also why the main market is moving out of the central area of Windemere Crossing: training is taking up more space. Though there will always be a few small merchants and things there. Some that may cater to our military. 

This month, when rolling on the tables, the following results:

• the economy is booming! We get an additional 3 SP (1/100 citizens). Think we'll actually hold a celebration for the western gate (before starting on the new eastern gate).
• while everyone enjoyed the festival, there was no change to morale. Though as it was already pretty good already, all is well. 
• oh no! a merchant was trying to smuggle in some low-level monsters! They have escaped and are somehow hiding in Windermere Crossing or nearby! A small flock of alicanto (from the Monster Overhaul) are eating precious metals in town! Rewards for getting rid of them! The merchant is currently in the jail. There will still be some left when the players show up.
• and oh no again! The well got tainted - one of the alicantos fell in, which is how they found out about this attempt. Water is being boiled for the next few weeks until all the contaminated water is cleared. This does reduce our wood availability.

  

  alicanto from Wikipedia

And we're starting on the eastern gate, which, after the well incident, will take 3 months instead of two due to the lumber shortage. And between that, the new swordsmen and the festival, our settlement points are about filled up. We also add 14 people this month, of which most are the swordsmen. I am going with there are 10 per group, so we also have a new baby, and some of the gate workmen, from the Dwarven capital no less, have decided to stay. Being Dwarves and there are some mines nearby, they have decided to stick around a bit more.

So interesting things are still going on, and now I have a potential quest in town for our adventurers. There is a nice d10 table for the alicanto beast, and as they just scratch, are unlikely to kill our adventurers! 

Next month the market will be completed which brings in 40 AP per month. Part of that is getting eaten up by our strengthening military, but we'll find other usages for it. 

And now thinking about the Dwarves - would they like or dislike the alicanto? As that beast eats gold and other precious metals, I would think they would hate it. Yet it can also lead them to precious metal veins in the earth. Makes you wonder if they think that is cheating from a Dwarven perspective. I'm going to go with most Dwarves hate the beasts and will kill them on sight. Yet Monda Barkwright (human male owner of the salt mine) was importing them to take to Crevice Creak (the salt mine and described in the Oracle Special issue #1 (Grinning Frog). Tada - linking things together. Though the characters won't know the why, it may come up in play somehow. Which really means I may have to get a merchant NPC and oddly, I was looking at the Merchant OSE character yesterday for some reason. And apparently merchants belong to a merchant guild so I can use my guild book and either use an existing guild or create one. Next post ideas! Or at least a post soon coming to you: I need to do a Traveller post. And run a Traveller game (and that did come up in our Saturday talk-fest so it may happen yet).

And finally - think I'll see about running an OSE game on the terrain I set up. Unless the cats destroy it first. So now I have 2 potential posts to write. And never enough time (this weekend flew by, but as I mowed a lot of grass, at least I did accomplish something outside of my head. And I cleaned the basement as well as that is where we game. Or in this case, talk)