[WFRP] The Bloody Crown IX

[LCP]

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

"Big lad hit me," grunted Norten. "Miller's boy." He spoke very slowly, still squinting even with his good eye. "Can she... turn that down?"

"The boy went for us," said one of the older halberdiers - Franz? "His da too. These ladies didn't want to leave." He gave Sieghard a cool look, while two others started to help Oswald back to his feet. "You'd rather we turned 'em out in the cold?"

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"The boy punched you so you had him killed," Sieghard replied dispassionately, "Then his father came at you with a club and you had him killed as well."

He turned to one of the older women (the young one was still cowering away from Elsa's flaming hair and eyes). "Is It as he says?" he asked, "Did you refuse to leave?" He didn't doubt the part about the miller and his son - Norten's black eye was proof enough of that.

[-Sentinel-]

"Your orders were to burn farmers' fields, not to turn their wives and daughters into your personal barmaids."

Elsa snorted at that. Barmaids? She was reasonably confident that if she and Sieghard had arrived just an hour later, they would have found the soldiers taking turns raping the girl and the two women. She hoped they were not too late already.

It did not take long for her crown of fire to fade away, though her dark scowl remained. "Let it be perfectly clear," she said, loud enough for all to hear, "that if I catch any of you taking advantage of a lady in the coming days, I will personally castrate him with the dullest, rustiest farm tool I can find in the building."

[LCP]

Sieghard, Elsa & Ludo

The women looked at one another. "Leave?" said the one Sieghard had chosen. "Where are we supposed to go?" Her voice faltered, too frightened for indignation. He suspected it was the first time the subject had been raised.

"Can't folk just... calm down," said Norten, his face still screwed up as if in pain. He seemed to be having trouble following what was going on. "Maybe some of the lads got a bit... carried away, but ain't no harm done. This is what the Captain wanted, ain't it?"

"Let it be perfectly clear," she said, loud enough for all to hear, "that if I catch any of you taking advantage of a lady in the coming days, I will personally castrate him with the dullest, rustiest farm tool I can find in the building."

"Ain't no ladies here," someone muttered at the back of the room, just a little too loud not to be heard.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Leave? Where are we supposed to go?"

"Selsan. Alvarran. Savonne if you want to plead to Alvarr and then starve with the rest of his city. Pick one," Sieghard said coldly, "You have until dawn to choose and gather your belongings. After that we burn whatever is left and move on."

"Can't folk just... calm down. Maybe some of the lads got a bit... carried away, but ain't no harm done. This is what the Captain wanted, ain't it?"

"Then you make it your job to keep them from getting carried away," he replied sternly, "Your men want to drink and celebrate? Fine, I hope they enjoy themselves. But they'll leave out anyone who doesn't want to be a part of it. Anyone who can't handle that simple rule and gets carried away will be punished harshly." Compared to Elsa's melodramatic threat, he kept his own to the point. "Anyone man who behaves like a Norscan will be treated as one. Yours, Viktor's or my own, I won't hesitate to have any man who can't control himself hanged."

Turning to the halberdiers themselves, he continued, "And since you've put these women to work serving your drinks, it only seems right you should pay them for it. And they'll be paid well - you can thank whichever funny man couldn't keep his mouth shut for that."

[LCP]

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

"Leave 'em out who don't want to be a part?" sneered Franz. "This is a war, ain't it? What are we supposed to say - 'scuse me sir, madam, we're just here to take everything you own, but if you'd rather we didn't we'll be on our way."

He looked to Norten. "This what it's come to, Jan? Whipped by Slayer and his band of little girls? The old sarge'd be spinning in his grave."

"Will you shut up?" grunted Norten in reply, putting a hand to the bruised side of his head. "I'm trying to think."

"There's too much thinkin' going on here by half," said Franz. He gave Sieghard a challenging look. "You want to pay the farm girls, Slayer, pay 'em yourself. You ain't gettin' as much as a copper pfennig out of us."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard managed to keep himself calm through most of this, a bit of irritation showing at most. Now he was beginning to actually get angry.

"One more word of backtalk out of you and I'll actually have you whipped," Sieghard barked.

"Our enemy is Duke Alvarr, not his peasants," he said, turning back to Norten, "I will not tolerate anyone abusing them, raping them, or killing them without good reason. A shilling from this month's pay will be taken from every man here. Now have the bodies outside buried before they attract animals."

Spoiler

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(1d100)[61] vs 51 intimidate for Franz
(1d100)[32] reroll

(1d100)[76] vs 49 Command for everything else
(1d100)[86] reroll

[LCP]

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

Franz clammed up, but a wave of discontented murmurs went around the room at the mention of docked pay. All the misguided merriment had drained out of the room, and now Norten's men stood around like gawkers watching some confrontation in the street.

"Come on," said Roth to the men around him, standing up with a businesslike air. "Let's find some shovels."

Six of the halberdiers followed him outside. All but one of them were Groz's old men.

OOC:

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Ball's in your court, nothing immediately about to kick off. I imagine you might have some follow-up you want to do with various NPCs - if you guys can indicate who you want to talk to and how far you want to move forward then that's what we'll do.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard carefully noted which men actually went to bury the dead, then turned to the Thorns behind him. "Stop gawking and go help them."

As he walked past, he muttered to Ludo, "See that the women are paid for their work from the company funds. The same amount being taken from the halberdiers."

---

The next morning as the fires spread, he approached Norten. "How's your eye feeling?" he asked. And then after he had gotten his answer, "Have you thought at all about what happens once Alvarr and Rorik are dead and the war is over?"

[LeSwordfish]

24th Pflugzeit
"I'll keep half an eye on Norten, too." Ludo said, looking over at the halberdier. "Not that he was the sharpest knife anyway but he seems... out of sorts, maybe. Could be he got hit hard." He glanced at Ingwald. "Where was he? Was he drinking out there?"

[LCP]

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

“He was just sitting on the ground out by the horse trough,” said Ingwald. He looked back over his shoulder towards the gate. “Think he must have got hit pretty hard.”

Keeping an eye on Norten turned out to be a lot easier than paying the women. The two older women seemed to think it was being offered in exchange for the mill, and if they refused it they would keep their rights to the place – or worse, that it was being offered to purchase the kind of services that Oswald and his crowd had looked to take for free. Ludo had a delicate task in explaining that neither case was true.

---

Backertag, 25th Pflugzeit

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

The next morning, the three women stood grimly by and watched as the Thorns did a circuit of the house with burning brands, setting light to everything that would catch. They were accompanied by a much older women and two young children that either Norten or Roth had apparently secured away from the rowdiness last night – accounts differed as to which.. Two fresh-dug graves lay next to the gate, holding the bodies of the miller and his son.

Watching the reflection of the firelight in the women’s eyes, Ludo saw no gratitude there for the mercy they had been shown, only a fixed, wordless hatred for the men who had stolen their home from them. Turning away from the blaze, the tallest of them ushered the others away, heading east with Sieghard’s gold in their pockets and what little else they could carry on their backs.

Norten seemed somewhat recovered, though his face was still bruised and swollen. He seemed as morose as his men, grunting the barest of deferential acknowledgements to Sieghard as he approached.

"How's your eye feeling?" he asked. And then after he had gotten his answer, "Have you thought at all about what happens once Alvarr and Rorik are dead and the war is over?"

“Feels about as good as it looks,” Norten grumbled. His good eye wandered over to where Nat and the Volunteers were loading up the second wagon with sacks of grain taken from the mill. “And no, I haven’t. Too much thinkin’ is what gets folk into trouble.” He leaned on a supportive fencepost. “Guard duty was good enough work when there weren’t no war, back under the Commander. Ought to be good enough work once this war’s done.”

---

Bezahltag, 26th Pflugzeit

Narcisa

Narcisa had seen the smoke from the mill from some miles away; she remembered with regret her failure to persuade the miller and his family to leave. Not least because it seemed like he’d had some quite nice things in that big house of his. Still, she had no time for self-blame – keeping ahead of the soldiers required her to keep up a relentless pace, considering the zig-zag path she had to track between each new hamlet and farmstead.

They were drawing close to the mouth of Pieter’s Pass, and the land here was wilder and less cultivated than the rich fields closer to the city. Sitting on a jagged rock that poked up above a swathe of gorse, she was lunching on some delicacies taken from the last cottage’s larder when she saw horsemen approaching from the south. Quickly gulping down the mouthful of black bread she had been chewing, she ducked down behind the stone to watch.

They were riding hard on the Alvarran road, a plume of dust rising behind them. Five men in the Duke’s colours, wearing mail and with swords at their belts. At the speed they were going, she expected they’d be through the pass well before nightfall.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"I've had more trouble from doing things without thinking," Sieghard replied.

"Last year those women were subjects of the elf, and of the mad Duke Wulf before then. And in a year, gods willing, they'll be Sforza's farmers and we'll be helping rebuild," He looked east towards where they had gone. "Most of the farmers whose fields we've burned will be able to let go and move on when peace returns, but not them I wager. And they'll talk and tell stories and it will be all the more trouble for us because of it."

"It's because of that we can't give them any more trouble than we have to. The Captain gave us bandit's work, but that doesn't mean we can act like bandits. The men of Manaan's Keep and the Thornwood are better than that."

[RossN]

Narcisa

Narcisa waited until the horsemen were out of sight before returning to her lunch. She wondered if any of the peasants they'd burnt out of house and home had been telling what was happening here. It looked like the Tilean's plans were working, pox on him.

With a sigh she tried to sit on her qualms and after making sure everything was clear resumed her mission. More farmers to terrify...

[LCP]

25th Pflugzeit

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

It was hard to decipher Norten’s expression through the swelling that disfigured his face, but he didn’t look too impressed with Sieghard’s wisdom.

“You think the rest of them is goin’ to forgive and forget? We burned their homes, robbed ‘em blind, you think they’ll let bygones be bygones ‘cos you was polite about it?” He shook his head. “This is war. If we win they’ll knuckle under, ‘cos they’ll know what happens if they don’t. And if we lose it won’t matter anyhow.”

He made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat and looked over his shoulder. "Meantime I've got fifty men sayin' they got their pay docked for doin' their job. You want to worry what people think about you, Slayer, worry about them."

---

Angestag, 28th Pflugzeit

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

They were one day over the road and in the midst of rounding up a herd of cows when the rider arrived. Ortwin had the herdsman restrained in a bear-hug grip, the man still struggling and pleading for them not to take his livelihood.

The rider rode up through the press of lowing cattle, his horse slowing to a halt and looking for a way around. It was one of Nat’s men, looking thoroughly shaken up by the ride; he was riding the animal Sieghard had given them for carrying messages. Inexpertly dismounting, the man pressed the reins into the hands of the nearest soldier who could hold them and ran up to Sieghard.

“Wagons on the road comin’ out of the pass,” he said, a little out of breath. “Big caravan. We counted about fifty guards. Duke’s colours” He took a gulp of air. “Heading south for the city.”

[LeSwordfish]

"Fifty guards?" Ludo said. "Alvarr's men? How were they armed?"

He cast a sideways look at Sieghard. Fifty peasants versus their hundred militia and a wizard? That might be doable.

[LCP]

Ludo, Sieghard & Elsa

"Plenty of iron. Swords, mail, a few horses. Nat thought some of 'em looked like sellswords."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

25th Pflugzeit

Forget? No, but they'll get over it in time. The halberdiers will as well.

"Captain Sforza didn't order them to help themselves to the farmers' wives and daughters. I specifically forbade it," Sieghard said calmly. "I forbade it in Savonne and again before we started this march. Nothing's changed. If they think what they were doing was doing their job, then better to break that sort of thinking now."

---

28th Pflugzeit

"Mercenaries?" He turned towards Elsa. "Do you think it could be Falkenwald? The Captain needs to know of this as soon as possible. How quickly can your bird return?"

[LeSwordfish]

"Or the Storm Swords maybe?"

[-Sentinel-]

"Fifty men aren't a lot. Could merely be soldiers left behind in Shepherd's Valley," mused Elsa. To Sieghard she answered: "I'm not sure how soon Morrslieb can make it, to be honest. Or how fast Sforza's men can get in position. Do you think we have the manpower to ambush them ourselves? My fire could do a lot to scare their horses."

Those wagons were likely full of food for Alvarr's soldiers in the city. They could not be allowed to get through.


OOC

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I forgot how many men we have.

We really could use a dragon.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"We've got twice the men they do. Numbers aren't a concern," Siegard replied Discipline on the other hand...

"I'm more worried about who the mercenaries are. Or why Alvarr would risk sending for a caravan when he should know the Captain has men in the field... We haven't exactly been subtle. In any case, Sforza needs to know and I'm not going to risk moving against them until we hear back. Whether Morrslieb is faster than sending a rider or not, he'd be useful against them."

[LCP]

Sieghard, Ludo & Elsa

"It won't be long 'til they're past us here," said the messenger from the Volunteers. "They were keeping up a good pace." He looked over his shoulder towards the road. "Nat took the others south to find Norten's lot. Didn't want to get caught on our own."

OOC:

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You are currently about 10-12 miles from the mouth of Pieter's pass; presumably the caravan is now substantially closer since it took time for the messenger to ride to meet you.

[-Sentinel-]

"Keeping food away from Savonne is the one and only reason why we're out here," Elsa pointed out. "When we get word back from Sforza, it may be too late to stop the caravan."

She turned to the messenger: "Were you able to see how the men were armed?"

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard looked less than convinced. " 'If Alvarr sends his men after us, retreat and join up with the Iron Company.' Those were the Captain's orders. He doesn't want us to fight."

Spoiler

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If we're only one day over the road and about 10 miles away from the mouth of the pass, we're about the same distance from Sforza's main camp. It's taken a week to get this far along, so we're moving at a rate of about 1 hex every 2 days thanks to how we've been spreading out to hit farmland and half a hex west of the road and a hex to a hex and a half north of him. It's doable.

[LeSwordfish]

"Right." Ludo said. "Not really sent after us but... right. We can send the raven ahead: if Sforza changes his mind they can send a message back that way."

"I'll make sure we're ready to move fast."

[-Sentinel-]

"Fine, I'll recall Morrslieb," said Elsa. It was not as if the raven was doing much good over in the Uplands. "But I want eyes on the caravan if the meantime. If we have an undreamed-of opportunity for an ambush, I want to seize it."


OOC

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Several things to consider here, including whether the caravan will rest for the night. It seems likely they'll attempt a sleepless dash for Savonne, but a horse can't pull a loaded cart forever.

If we do attack the caravan, the main goal isn't to kill guards, but to destroy the cargo. Elsa has three balls of sulphur (spell ingredients), which could be used to make flammable crossbow bolts. It might also be possible to delay the caravan via traps such as hidden potholes (e.g. dig a hole in the road, put a cloth or tarp over the hole, cover the cloth with dirt and pebbles) to injure their horses or break their wheels, though there is a risk they'll become more alert and in a bigger hurry once they realize they've been spotted.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"We'll send a message by one of Abdul's runners as well," Sieghard said. "No way to know which will get the message to him and back sooner. Once we regroup with the rest, we can fall back along the road... That way we can still cut them off if that's what Sforza wants. Or possibly drive them towards the Iron Company's position."

"Did you tell Norten's men about this caravan or come straight to find us?" he asked the messenger.

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That's actually a very good question. It's 6 hexes from Alvarran to Savonne. Even at a breakneck speed, they shouldn't be able to make that in one day. How late in the day is it?

[LCP]

"Came right here," said the messenger. "Nat's gone to find Norten."

OOC:

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Mid-afternoon.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard nodded. "Better start on that message for the Captain," he told Elsa "Let him know what's happened and what we're doing. We'll find the others then start south along the road. After that, if he doesn't have us engage them, we'll start back west." He went to find Kaspar.

"Take the other horse and ride north to find Norten's halberdiers," he said after explaining the situation. "Nat should already be heading to find him. If he's already there with the rest of the Volunteers, tell them I want both companies to head south to find us. If he hasn't arrived yet, tell Norten to wait for him and then head towards us after he arrives."

[LCP]

Kaspar nodded. "You'll still be here?" he asked.

OOC:

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How far are you going to fall back along the road? Will you stop when the sun sets?

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa pulled out a quill and some parchment to write her message. "You know, it's occurred to me... We could get them to turn back simply by showing up. We outnumber them. They have beasts and cargo to protect, they can't leave the road, and they have no defensible position."

She grinned. "Imagine you're carrying a big cake to a wedding. Another man draws his sword and tells you to drop the cake, or he'll skewer you. Sure, you have a fair chance of winning a fight with him... but a much, much smaller chance of winning the fight with the cake intact. So the smart choice is to comply. It's just math."