Part 350: Raven Banner

After this, Enerin comes back with the standard "the people we gave stuff to like us more now" message. Just assume that this happens after any given diplomacy mission from now on, because they all say the same damned thing.


Dark season hits, and I take the opportunity to hire more weaponthanes. Loricon says that 7 are wounded and 1 is sick, so we really had more than 17 weaponthanes, but why turn down a chance for more warriors?


My timing is impeccable.


Stead-burning would sting if it wasn't just a goods penalty, since we have shitloads of goods laying around.



I really don't have much to do during Dark Season now that we now all the blessings anyone cares about, and I don't really want to expand any more shrines - I've been keeping an eye on sheep numbers, and shrine maintenence appears to be breaking even with sheep growth. Expanding any more could inch us into a sheep death spiral, and I don't want that.


So I decide to have Eurmal curse our enemies. This can't possibly go wrong.


That's...good? Bad? Neutral? Who can even tell with Eurmal?



In other news, guess what we found, which wasn't on our tula like I thought it was!


An exploration party returns with a legendary treasure of the First Age, Humakt's Raven Banner. When carried into a fight, this battle standard guarantees victory in battle. However, it does so at great cost: the standard bearer is always killed.

-Give it to an enemy as a peace offering.
-Give it to another clan.
-Keep it.
-Return it to where it was hidden.
-Trade it to another clan.

If we keep the banner, we will have to use is sparingly. No warrior wants to go into combat if he is certain to die.
If we give this treasure away, make sure we don't send it to our enemies.
Trade it for cows, or for peace.
One of the ten survivors of the Dragonkill War said that the man ordered to carry the Raven Banner into that battle dropped it early in the battle, thus ensuring victory for the dragons.
Any smart trader would try to dicker us down no matter what our starting price, so might as well start high.
This is a tough one.
With this treasure, we could safely march against the inhabitants of the Upland Marsh. (Out of the two nobles who want to keep the death banner, one of them is the Chalana Arroy worshipper, and he's also the one who doesn't also recommend some other option. I love it.)