Part 458: 1366 - 1367: Cabbage Ducks

The year starts! We're suffering a bit in the magic department because our crops are weak, and our crops are weak because we don't have many adults.



A double dose of bad news. Jenesta may start trying to take over the clan again, and Arnbord's death is just generally glum.



I think it's a good day to bury the hatchet with the Blue Jays.



Oh, come on! The thanes want to split the clan in half!? Three fifths of the clan are kids. We need to stay together untill that balance is smoothed over. And yet these arrogant jerks feel they have insufficient political clout because our schools are overful? They're just running away from their responsibilities!

This is the downside of always casting off the troublemakers--they tend to be adults, and have small families, and so we've been building up an unnaturally large number of children.

Troublemakers or no, we have to find some way to assuage their doubts in our future prosperity.



And I'll do that by getting more land.

I'm worried that this will impact our relations with the Black Rocks (who we only just stopped feuding with) but both the Blue Jays and the Tree Brothers are too far away to steal land from.



Diplomatic snafu or no, the land is ours!



And replacing the falled weaponthanes takes little effort.



Good! I'm sure that now, finally, this dispute is over and we'll never hear about it again.



The attempt to stop feuding with the Blue Jays didn't go as well as I had hoped, unfortunately.



And the Black Rocks are a little upset that the stole their cattle, goods, food, land, and lives. Clearly there's only one solution.



Hitting them again, harder!



Argh! Who told my men to show mercy?



I'll show that filthy nerd clan just who are the true history-loving war-crazed lunatics of Dragon Pass!



Fool me twice, shame on you... but the third time I can learn!



Yet more of the Black Rock lands fall into my posession.



Anyway, since we've been having food issues, I've sent Orlant to purchase more food from the Bayberries. Our tribal pact forbids us from purchasing food from any other clan, after all.



The Tusk Raiders show up, and inexplicably I have the Bullroarer again. I thought it broke?



It sure broke this time.



I'm not sure what shamans Jenesta is talking about here, but it looks like that shrine to the ancestors we built saved the day.



The Black Rocks surrender again, which if history is any guide, should last for a good five or six months.



Another stroke of bad luck--the is the first time I've failed to learn a mystery in many years.



So, it turns out the greedy Bayberries are quite, quite useless, but I'm also sure that if I were to try to buy food from anyone else, they'd get insulted.

Arrrrrgh.



A delegation of Cabbage Ducks come to your clan hall demanding redress for the slayings of their kinsmen. 5 ducks were killedby nobles of your clan, or so they allege. They say that they are as Orlanthi as we, and demand compensation for these killings. They say that the slain were nobles, and deserving the full wergild of a warrior thane, 20 cows, paid in silver.

Pay a carl's wergild for each dead duck.

Pay a cottar's wergild for each dead duck.

Pay a thane's wergild for each dead duck.

Reject their claim.

Demand tribute from them.

Offer to pay in cattle.

The ducks are no threat to us. On the other hand, their cousins, the beastfolk, could fall upon our tula and destroy us.

We have already done them harm. Do not threaten them further.

They are protecting the interests of their clan, as any human thanes would do.

We can afford to pay what justice demands.

The ducks claim to be descended from a great, vanished Empire called Ganderland.