House Among Chaotic Kingdoms

Votes for this Turn:

A1 - Combat - 6

A2 - Leisure - 0

A3 - Scholarly - 0

A4 - Diplomacy - 43

A5 - Language - 1

A6 - Communications - 0

S1 - Wikipedia - 0

S2 - Steam - 10

S3 - Paradox - 11

S4 - World - 31

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Rolls for this Turn:

Personal: Might and Magic Wiki

Thanks to Stephen (promoter), we now have another Minion!

Specifically, he’s a priest of the old gods who will proselytize wherever we send him and who has the ability, thanks to some long-forgotten treaty with his order, to “Promote” people onto the rank of Knight by northern standards.

Technically, only The Stark in Winterfell and a few of the Green Priests like him have this ability, which is why there are so few Northern Knights, comparatively.

(Sending this minion to the Reach or similar stronghold of Faith of the Seven is a death sentence for him.)

World: Bulbapedia

Thanks to Duskull (Pokémon), a small number of Duskull, Dusclops, and Dusknoir will appear in the most haunted places in Westeros, including but not limited to:

Harrenhal

The Nightfort

Summerhall

The Red Keep Tunnels

The Whispers

Oldstones

Castamere

Hardhome

The Dreadfort

The Tower of Joy

However, this was a low roll, and because of that, these Pokémon are now fiat guaranteed to refuse to bond to anyone who already has a bond with another Pokémon.

In this world of no-pokeballs, it’s not just the Pokémon and trainer who need to get along, but all the Pokémon with each other, and these ones are guaranteed to all be the possessive type.

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Story:

When you asked to join Rob and Theon in their war lessons, you had expected something louder than what Uncle Ned actually gave you, but it turned out to be the sort of lesson that grew more interesting the longer you sat with it.

You had expected shields, shouted orders, and some little piece of battle cut down small enough for boys to touch without getting themselves broken over it.

Instead, Uncle Ned started with the road itself.

He did not begin with charges or banners.

He began by asking how an army even reached a battlefield without fouling itself up before the real fighting began.

That sounded smaller than war for about half a minute, and then it stopped sounding small at all.

He laid the order out plainly enough, with: scouts ahead, riders where they could move cleanly, foot where they would not choke the road, baggage guarded, officers placed where commands could still run the length of the line, and wagons kept where one mishap would not snarl everything behind them.

That was where it started clicking for you.

An army on the march was not one thing.

It was a chain of things forced to move together without tripping over themselves.

A broken wagon did not matter only because wood had split.

It mattered because the carts behind it stalled, the men behind them slowed, and the whole line could turn awkward before anyone even saw an enemy.

A narrow bridge, bad mud, one lame horse, or one fool deciding he would ride where he pleased could change the whole shape of a march.

That was the part your mind caught first, with: not the wheel, not the road, but the men around them.

A blocked crossing mattered because somebody would grow impatient.

A delayed order mattered because somebody would decide his own need came first.

The lesson looked like it was about wagons and bridges, but underneath that it was about people, which always sat more easily in your head than laws or ledgers ever did.

Rob, for his part, was plainly good at this.

That showed almost at once.

He did not only listen well.

He seemed to recognize the shape of the thing before Uncle Ned had even finished setting it down.

If an army was his to command one day, then he wanted to know where it bent first, where it broke first, and how to stop either from happening.

There was still more weight in him than before the war, but here that only made him seem steadier, as though this was the sort of thinking he had already begun doing for himself.

Theon watched for where the order might go crooked.

He cared less for the clean shape on its own and more for the places where pride, confusion, or bad temper would pull it sideways.

If wagons slowed, he saw who would try to ride around them.

If a crossing tightened, he knew which men would panic their horses and which would act too grand to wait.

That had its own kind of use.

Then the lesson turned, and the march became command.

Not because Uncle Ned announced some grand new subject.

Because once the line began going wrong in all these little examples, the next question came by itself.

Who fixed it next was the real point.

If the captain in front went down, who spoke after him.

If the road narrowed and the baggage had to stop, who decided whether the riders held or moved.

If a warning came in and the officer meant to answer it was dead, lost, or too far off to matter, who took his place before confusion spread any farther.

That was where the lesson stopped sounding like roadwork and started sounding like war.

Chain of command seemed dry when said plainly.

Then the examples landed and the dryness vanished.

If the man above you fell, someone had to know who answered after him.

If two orders clashed, someone had to know which one held.

If nobody knew who commanded, men stopped moving like an army and started moving like frightened animals, and that helped nobody.

That was where Uncle Ned stopped explaining and started asking.

The captain is dead.

A wagon axle is broken.

The road narrows at the river.

Riders are sighted ahead.

Now what comes next.

Rob answered first, and answered well.

Hold the line.

Keep the baggage from bunching.

Send warning back.

Make command clear before panic spreads.

That was not only a good answer.

It was the sort of answer that made it plain he had a real knack for this part of things, because he seemed to see the order of the problem naturally, as though command already sat in his head in the right shape.

Theon came at it from another angle.

He wanted the baggage pulled clear of the crossing, the fools at the front sharply told where to stand, and the warning sent not only backward but outward too, because the men at the edges would be the first to swear later that nobody had warned them.

That was a good answer too.

Yours started somewhere else.

You said the first thing was making sure everyone knew who was in charge now, because until that happened every other order had a chance of dying before it reached the right ears.

Then the impatient men had to be checked.

Then the wagon could be handled.

Then the line could move again.

That earned a useful kind of look.

Not praise exactly.

More the sort adults gave when something they had half expected of you finally showed itself clearly enough to count.

After that, the whole lesson fit together better.

The road, the baggage, the outriders, the officers, and the crossings no longer felt like separate bits.

They leaned on each other.

An army moved in order because if it did not, command frayed.

Command mattered because if it failed, movement frayed with it.

Once both were gone, the rest of the day became much harder than it needed to be.

That was the lesson worth keeping.

War was not only battle.

War was roads, wagons, crossings, warnings, and knowing whose voice came next when the first one fell silent.

None of that looked glorious, but all of it mattered.

By the time the lesson ended, even a bridge looked different than it had that morning, not larger but heavier with meaning.

An army could begin coming apart long before battle, because hunger, bad ground, a fouled march, or the wrong man dying before anyone knew who spoke after him could do more damage than most boys ever guessed.

That was useful knowledge.

It was also lordship in another coat, because once again the real lesson was not the road itself but the people trying to move along it together.

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Skills:

Combat:

(4) Westerosi CQC - 20/100 (+15) (Skilled In North)

(4) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 5/100 (+10) ←

(5) Northern Archery - 65/100 (+15) (Skilled)

(3) Northern Equestrianism - 76/100 (+7) (Knack)

(3) Heavy Armour - 80/100 (+15) (Skilled)

Diplomacy:

(5) Interpersonal Communication - 25/100 (+15) (Skilled) ←

(2) Public Speaking - 60/100 (+5) (Skilled)

(5) Management - 100/100 (+50) (Prodigious)

(2) Stewardship - 100/100 (+25) (Knack)

(2) Northern Law - 82/100 (+25) (Knack)

(2) Westerosi Law - 72/100 (+25) (Knack)

Language:

(5) Common Speaking - 15/100 (+15) (Knack) ←

(5) Old Tongue Speaking - 7/100 (+15) (Knack) ←

(3) Valyrian Speaking - 77/100 (+12) (Knack)

(4) Common Reading - 20/100 (+15)

(1) Westerosi Runes - 96/100 (+3)

(3) Valyrian Reading - 75/100 (+10)

Scholarly: (Knack in North)

(3) Math(s) - 95/100 (+10)

(3) Accounts - 95/100 (+10)

(5) Northern History - 55/100 (+15) (Knack)

(3) Westerosi History - 90/100 (+10)

(4) Northern Peoples - 55/100 (+10)

(3) Westerosi Peoples - 80/100 (+10)

Leisure: (Knack in North)

(3) Northern Hunting - 82/100 (+12)

(2) Fishing - 34/100 (+7)

(2) Swimming - 24/100 (+7)

(1) Seacraft - 16/100 (+3)

(1) Climbing - 24/100 (+7) (Skilled In North)

(1) Acting (Lying Convincingly) - 91/100 (+3)

(3) Gardening - 10/100 (+30) (Prodigious) ←

War:

(1) Strategy - 100/100 (+50) (Prodigious)

(1) Castrametation - 35/100 (+25)

(1) Poliorcetics - 10/100 (+0)

(1) Fleetcraft - 10/100 (+0)

(1) Battlewise (coup d’œil) - 10/100 (+0)

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Earning: 4

Spending: 0

Banked: 12

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Rolls for Next Turn:

T5 = Power/Skill for a Prominent Figure

L1 = Inconvenient

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Voting:

Main Actions: (+ = Low, ++ = Mid, +++ = High)

A1 - Train with Jon, and sometimes Rob and Theon, in the Yard. (Combat Focus)

(Reputation: ++ Jon + Theon, + Rob)

A2 - Go on Hunts With Jon and Sansa. (Equestrianism + Leisure Focus)

(Reputation: ++ Jon, ++ Sansa, + Ned, - - Cat)

A3 - Keep up your studies with your cousin, Sansa, and Maester Lewin. (Scholarly Focus)

(Reputation: ++ Sansa, + Cat, + Ned)

A4 - Act as your Uncle Ned’s page with Rob and Theon. (Diplomacy + War Focus)

(Reputation: ++ Ned, + Theon, + Rob)

A5 - Spend your time teaching/watching little Arya and your Wolves with Yara. (Language Focus)

(Reputation: ++ Arya, + Yara, + Ned)

A6 - Follow Rob until he shares his Friends and Activities with you. (Communications Focus)

(Reputation: +Rob, + Cat, + Ned)

Personal Rolls Sources:

S1 - Wikipedia (On Cooldown 2/2)

S2 - Steam Games

S3 - Paradox Wiki's (D30)

S4 - World Rolls List (D12) (On Cooldown 1/1)

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Information:

1 - Reputations as of Chapter 29

Jon - Friends (+)

Sansa - Close Friends

Arya - Friends

Cat - Friendly

Ned - Friends

Rob - Good

Theon - Good (-)

Yara - Ok (+)

(Neutral → Fine → Ok → Good → Friendly → Friends → Close Friends → BFF’s)

(+) Means we’re one “+” with that person from it going up a rank.

(-) Means we’re one “-” with that person from it going down a rank.

Ned has just passed Arya to become our #3 out of the Stark Household.

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Write-In/Questions:

1 - What should our new Minion be named, and what’s his/her history?

We’ll be deciding his/her task next turn.