Part 159: Thrall Problems

No magic from this; apparently our ancestors are picky and don't count this as being nice to dragons.


For fuck's sake. Just kill the bandits!


I might have to try this again next Sea season, since no one is likely to attack us then(the Horse-Spawn seem to favor harassing us in Earth, and Orlanthi aren't crazy enough to ruin their own harvests to attack us) & I could get away with sending almost all of our weaponthanes along.


I see Beneva picked up on my heavy hinting last update. She's not completely useless. We can use the bullroarer in battle to fuck up people on horse back(like, say, the horse-spawn), but it has a chance of breaking with each use. _{Knowing our clan, that means it will break the first time we use it.}


The harvest was bad, as expected. All that rye helped, but not enough. (We have 609 bushels of food and 722 people, so we're 113 short)


Nevertheless, getting either one of Barntar's blessings would really, really help in future years.


Vigor lets our farmers work harder. Pretty handy since we're chronically short!


And now here's hoping we get Bless Crops.


Swine blessing increases the fertility of our pigs. Pigs are routinely slaughtered for food, and we can mass slaughter them to help us in times like this, but I've honestly never bothered with Swine Blessing. Bless Crops and Preserve are both better.




Harbard, one of your carls, brings a thrall before you for punishment. "This wretch, this Farnan, seized upon my wife, Tarkala, and assaulted her! He injured her, and would have stolen her honor from her as well, if I had not come upon him. This thrall must die, lest the poison of his treachery infect the others of his kind!"

-Beat Farnan.
-Let Farnan speak.
-Kill Farnan.
-Scold Farnan.
-Trade Farnan and other thralls to another clan. (specify how many*)

We have too many thralls, and are likely to face an uprising if we do not get rid of at least 13 of them.

_{*At least I'm assuming we get to specify a number, based on Jorator's advice.}

What this reminds me of is...I forget what it reminds me of, exactly, but I'm sure there was something I...

We must make a death today.

The carls will be affronted if we even ask for Farnan's side of the story.

We will get the best price for our thralls if we approach the Hillhaven clan.

While a thrall of the Red Tongue clan, many years before he became a bad king, Urgrain assaulted the chieftain's wife. In due course, she gave birth to a litter of blue-skinned foemen.

Our people have always kept thralls; by doing as our ancestors did, we strengthen our clan magic.