The Keep of Grunwich Forest - The Courtyard

• Costs of the Keep

Structure.

• To build.

• 25000 Keep, 2000 per tower, 15000 the inside.

• 5000 Others, Stables, East Wing Building.

• 20000 Walls, 3000 per tower 2000 per wall.

• To repair - Half of it.

• Furnishings, per room:

• Basic - 25 gold - Spartan furnishings for a room, depending on its use. Small wooden bed with straw or a hammock, crude wooden tables, no adornments, merely the basics.
• Comfortable - 50 gold - Normal furnishings for a room, depending on its use. Beds of bigger size are available with nice matresses, some simple adornments and accessories, nice tables and chairs.
• Rich - 100 gold - Expensive furnishings for a room, depending on its use. Luxurious beds, finely carved tables, a few art pieces and plenty of accessories.

• Armory Stocking - Basic - 100 - Stock the armory with a selection of simple weapons, fit for general defence and the use of a guard. Spears, daggers, shortbows and light crossbows are the order of the day, with perhaps a couple proper blades, some small axes and the like.
• Armory Stocking - Exotic - 300 - Stock the armory into a proper collection of arms, including a few of most everything. Variety of what you may find within goes way up. You can arm a nice amount of guards with swords, some light armor, longbows and crossbows. Includes Armory Stocking Basic.
• Armory Stocking - Armors - 1000 - Stock the armory with breastplates and below of armor, suitable for arming a small force of guards.

• Kitchen Restoration - 75 Gold - Fix up the kitchen, setting in working order a few ovens, buying enough cutlery to handle about 30 people at a time and leave everything nice and tidy. Stock up the larder with a variety of common ingredients, allowing a cook to make balanced meals that aren't all too boring.
• Kitchen - Rich Reserves - 150 - Stock up the kitchen larder with a good selection of ingredients, spices, liquors and the like, making for some fine meals and dining for a while. Increases the upkeep cost of the keep as it costs more to restock ingredients for meals.

• Basic Stables - 10 Gold - Aldrik invites his friends, including a couple carpenter apprentices to a trip to the Keep where they spend a day or two constructing some makeshift stables, suitable for housing three horses. While not professional work, it will certainly be well done enough to not crumble and house the horses even in bad weather. Though only asking for meals and the chance to bathe in the nearby river, even the harshest of hearts will find it hard not to pay the charming village boys good for their service in helping a friend.
• Fine Stables - 400 - Hiring proper labor to make some good quality stables, enough to house comfortable up to 30 horses and some more if required. Includes an office for the ones tending the horses to rest in and do their business.
• Kennels - 250 - Proper Kennels to keep dogs or wolves locked up or simply safe from the elements.

• Forge - 400 Gold - Prepare a proper forge within the Keep, to be able to smelt and work metal or create equipment. Fully equipped with the tools for the job.

• Library - Covering the Basics - 250 Gold - Some books from the adventurer's own personal libraries, some haggling with Gnomish book merchants, going to Endrest for a few special orders, some gifts from grateful people and a letter and some coin thrown at Lissa' college ensues the Keep has enough books to fill some shelves. A library with basic books and maps on a wide variety of fields ensues entertainment and provides a +2 on knowledge checks to do research on most topics.
• Library - Greyoak Rangers Collection on Beasts and Creatures - 450 Gold - Contact the Greyoak Rangers and pay for a copy of their bestiaries, containing detailed information about the habits, physiology, combat, behavior and more of a wide variety of common and uncommon beasts and creatures. If read provides an additional +4 on knowledge Nature or Arcane checks to learn precise facts about a specific creature. If it's a beast within the bestiary and you study specifically about it, you learn their information and stat block.
• Library - Master Fulner's Fighting Essentials - 150 Gold - Contact a city book seller to track down Master Fulner's collection of essential books detailing all there is to know about fighting techniques with arms and armors against a variety of foes. Incredibly handy for someone learning how to fight or for an expect to polish their skills in traditional combat. Grants a +4 Bonus on Knowledge checks to identify fighting styles and weapons, additionally, grants Inspiration if read before going to battle.
• Library - Mariuk's Magic Theory Collection - 750 Gold - Contact the Mariuk Magical Academy to pass a small examination and then be able to acquire their basic collection of magical theory books, beloved of any and all spellcasters. Includes numerous books on magic theory, rituals, the planes and other such topics, a well as a few magical scrolls. Gives a +4 on research on Arcane matters.
• Library - Others - On request or with more time, more collections may be created to be pursued or bought by the Adventurers.

• Alchemical Laboratory - 250 Gold - Vials, pestle, mortar, some books, a decent collection of reagents and more is what is needed to start dealing with both chemistry and alchemy. Provides all the necessary tools to create alchemical mixtures and a +2 on rolls dealing with the same.
• Magical Laboratory - 350 Gold - Tomes, chalk, spell scrolls, books, magical implements, ingredients and the like, needed for crafting potions, doing rituals and all manner of magical research. Provides a +2 on rolls dealing with magical rituals or potion making.

• Altar - 150 Gold - Prepare a room for modest veneration of one or more deities, including seats, Holy Scripture, an altar with holy symbols and the like. Provides +2 on Knowledge Religion Checks when done within.
• Shrine - 350 - Prepare a room for the proper worship of deities, with a proper altar, decorations, some artwork of the venerated religions, Holy books and scriptures, incense and other details. Provides +4 on Knowledge, Religion checks and inspiration on the next spell cast by a worshipper. Also stocks a few flasks of Holy Water.

• Ballista - 500 Gold - A ballista. Why would you need a ballista? Who knows, but for 500 gold pieces you can have one.
• Gnome Engineered Ballista Array - 30000 Gold - Only available once all walls are fixed, these three ballistas per outer wall that can be moved on rails easily aimed up, down and to the sides.
• Ram - 1200 Gold - A siege capable ram to be used for cover by up to 8 people as they assault a gate.
• Mangonel - 1500 Gold - A proper mangonel to throw heavy stones or something else in times of siege.
• Suspended Cauldron - 200 Gold - A suspended Cauldron to use on gatehouse, only available once the gatehouse is fixed. Can be filled with burning oil or another substance to drop onto assailants.

Ok, I mostly focused on the luxuries and other furnishings that may grant bonuses or help with the Keep. If you want the price of something I missed or want added, do ask me. If the group spends downtime and their expertise on repairing parts of the keep, structurally, reduce the price further to a quarter instead of half cost of construction. I will later on add an updated map showing the parts of the keep that are in disrepair.

Alright, we should decide on what we're buying post time Skip. Nman did the Math and the money in the Keep is worth just over 3900 GP. This doesn't include money left over from character creation (I have about 400 GP left, and I imagine the rest of you are comfortably between the 500-300 range) or the 150 reward we're each due from the Mayor.

Dalt doesn't list basic upkeep or staff/guards so I'm not sure how much money we ought to leave over. It would be really nice to try to start clearing land before the Winter so if we do another timeskip forward, after this we don't have to wait a year for harvest. Then, I'm looking at this like a Dwarf Fortress minigame in the background of adventuring, so maybe I've underestimating how much we can/should try to be self-sufficent immediately.

Eitherway, out of the list of things, here's what I see as priorities:

• Basic Repairs (1200)-It'd be nice to actually have 4 walls and a roof over our heads.
• Library Basics (250)-We're all a bunch of nerds.
• Basic Stables (10 GP)-Cheap place to store horses so we can do much needed quick supply runs to town.
• Simple Armoury (100 GP)- Free extra swords and spears to stab things for next to nothing.
• Simple Kitchen (75 GP)-Probably need this not to starve.
• Basic Accomodations: ?? (At least 7, but we may have more laborers so we'll likely need more based on Dalt's ruling)-I think it's fair to say "Basic Furnishings from Communal Funds, Upgrades from personal funds:

Total: 1885 GP, assuming 10 rooms with basic furnishings. This is very comfortably within our budget and seems to account for what is absolutely strictly necessary.

• Recommended Luxuries (Not necessary but I recommend it more than the stuff below):
  • Bestiary Library- 450 Gold- Dalt's going to be throwing wierd stuff at it and this seems like a very expensive cheatsheet. With Sanna gone, we don't necessarily have any NATURE WARRIORS we can rely on for good rolls and even if we did, this is a guarentee of success.
  • Armor Stocking- 1k gold but Oisín will personally finance it so that the cost is only 600 GP.-I'm about to spend a lot on armour, so I figure we might as well go in for a onetime payment to cover all of our armour related needs forever. My character's funds will personally be pretty drained by this but they would be anyway, in exchange we get decent armour for everyone forever, including mooks.
  • Well-Stocked Kitchen: 75. Upkeep is more expensive. Benefits unclear. Still seems like there might be decent benefits; presumably worker loyalty at very least. Our gruel comes with fancier spices than Riltplait's.

Sub-total: 1200 (Grand total: 3110)

• Luxuries (I think we can squeeze these if people are willing to chip personal funds):
  • The Laboratories: 250/350, 500 for them together. - Almost in the Recommended Luxuries except I'm not sure which is better. Both are a bit pricy and I'm not sure how much they are needed. Oisín maaay try to use an Alchemical Lab as a Brewery and according to the Ph D, he might gain a proficency in doing so by the end of the time skip.
  • Two Altars/Shrine- 150gp-350gp- The main reason I hold off on this one is that it doesn't seem strictly necessary and each of the party members have their own Gods/Pantheons. Two Altars seems like enough to satisfy Drusus and Oisín as the divine party members and Oisín would definitely be in favour of keeping one for when he tries to rally the Dunallenners to the Keep, but it doesn't seem strictly necessary.
  • Kennels- 150-250gp- Guarddogs could come in handy and I'd be willing to chip even more case towards these, though ideally not since I'm running low at this point.

• Splurges (Probably out of our price range, but let me dream):
  • Ballista-Hahahaha. Yessss. Want. Quiero. Le Veux. Santaím sé.
  • Brewery- Not listed but pretty much the only way to stop Oisín from setting up a still somewhere out back.

Obviously this is just me outlining stuff and trying to divide up what we pay for from Public v. Private coffers. If you want to keep or spend your money on improvements not listed here, have something I list as a luxury bought out of the common fund, remove something I listed as necessary or recommended, or even argue that we should just divide up the common fund and (after the initial vital wall repair) just work on our own respective corners of the keep, then all of those options are cool and we should sort them out as a group. This just seems like the best thing we can really spend 3k right now, short of a Viking Raiding force which spreads terror over the river (which, sadly, Dalt veto'd).

edited 4th Mar '15 7:42:20 PM by Fauxlosophe

This sounds fine to me, though I still question the need to go full-on land baron right away. It's a dual question of feasibility and suitability - can we clear enough land for people to settle, and would it be safe or even worthwhile for them to do it - and add on top of that the question of whether we really want to drag a bunch of people into the monster forest while we are out and about on adventures half the year.

Faux, if you rush into the planting season before you have enough peons and guards, then you'll have no potatoes! And then you'll have to make vodka out of nothing but your tears.

Also how many total rooms are there? Or at least, rooms that can be used as quarters?

edited 4th Mar '15 3:48:34 PM by nman

I'm sort of treating it like a background thing that we build up as we complete more missions. I /know/ there are games where you have a keep in the background that upgrades more and more as you do quests in Gameworld but none come to mind. Dragon Age III maybe? I didn't play that one yet.

Whether we get actually sustainable fields/planting is another question and a longer term one, but I think we can safely assume we have a bit of staff and working towards being self-sustaining in the long run seems like a good idea. Dalt keeps waving Barony in my face as a long term goal but for now it's precisely that; long term.

Right now though, what I've outlined isn't anything like that; it's housing, free armour/basic weapons for P Cs, food and stables plus maybe libraries with extra info. At most, I'm talking cutting down a bit of a clearing, which could be used for spare housing or an outerwall, since the forest seems pretty threatening. I have broad plans for our keep to eventually become a barony and maybe eventually merit political consideration but those are still away aways.

Psh. Potatoes are for eating, barley is for the drink.

Also, I think Dalt said that we can safely assume that there are a lot of rooms as it's a fairly big keep.

edited 4th Mar '15 4:05:59 PM by Fauxlosophe

Age of Empires III, Overlord, and Assassin's Creed (II), perhaps?

The villa in AC 2 is probably closest to what you're imagining?

edited 4th Mar '15 4:30:08 PM by nman

The first three are all good examples (I only played the first AC). I'm sure I could think of others, but yeah.

I just wanna know how much longer until I can jump in

I'll get a post in later today; just got some work to take care of at the moment.

So that there's a record of it outside of Skype, I splurged and bought a rich room.

~desdendelle is Dizzle, right? We've done the timeskip.

Also, I wonder what our next mission will be. Perhaps we'll get a courier? I feel sorry for the courier that has to go through that forest and over the rocks, though.

edited 9th Mar '15 2:07:02 PM by RedSavant

Des/Desdenelle/Dizzle are all one in the same

Also, I think we can assume that we've sort of cleared out a dirt path maybe? Somewhere relatively tried and true passage, seen as we've been to the city and back probably a good few times by now (at least twelve round trips if we only travel on the weekends but likely far more than that).

Right, right. I'm just trying out the 'call attention to' feature.

Okay, we really need something to happen. Either a GM post or Oisin doing something; we need to get out of the kitchen.

Yeah Faux, it's all your fault that we're conforming to 1950's societal standards of having women discuss things in the kitchen!

Posted.

-waves-
Heylo and greetings, people!

*Throws master ball at Des*

Anybody home?

I'm still here. Just not sure where to go from here.

I know I'm up for a post, but I'm gonna wait until Oisin decides what he's doing so I don't fill the whole post with Schrodinger's Description. =)

Bear Hug!

Sorry guys! Crazy time for me, two major papers, 15 days.

Also an exam [19 days] and another essay [Prof doesn't really care on that one]

edited 15th Apr '15 10:43:57 AM by Fauxlosophe