War for the Crown Gameplay

”I would definitely encourage you to pay his estate a visit directly,” Adela replies. ”He has always been very lazy, but normally be wouldn’t skip the Jubilee or completely ignore my letters.”

"On the matter of the Lotheeds," Sarina begins, changing the subject, "It was clear that Bartelby was surprised and angry by the appearance of his Aunt. However, I'm not aware of much about her reputation, or what events might have lead to them being antagonistic towards each other. Do you have any idea what that might be?"

”She’s the great mystery of that family. I’m not overly familiar with her myself, as her and Panivar spend most of their time in their own duchy. I do know that there’s some sort of bad blood between Bartelby and his uncle,” Baroness Voinum reveals. ”His aunt could be caught in the middle of that. I also believe that animosity is related to the late Count’s death. Any word of his uncle or father’s passing completely shuts Bartelby up. Or his half-sister, for that matter, but I do know the reason for that.”

After that, the conversation moves to lighter fare, followed by a supper of pork loin in red wine sauce with a salad in a vinegar dressing, followed by fresh grapes and cheese.

The following day, the Betony heirs hold court in Onora's tavern, with the half-elven steward marshalling all those who would bring their concerns in an orderly line. Onora herself has a wicked black eye, swelling up. "M'lords and ladies, I figured we'd start with crimes that need judging, if you don't mind," Onora requests.

Noting the eye, Josie nods. "Yeah, that seems prudent. What happened?"

"Couple nights ago," she brings a stout woman with dark hair tied in a ponytail forward, "Lucinia here started a brawl at my bar, decked me, made off with my night's take, and more importantly, stole my bottle of oldlaw whiskey. Found her drunk in a barn the next day with my bottle empty." As she speaks, those lined up nod in confirmation and Lucinia just glares.

"Lucinia, why'd ya do it?" Corey leans forward. "Ya had t've known ya weren't gonna get off scott free."

"Piss off, ya son of a sow," Lucinia spits, not answering the question.

Josie merely shrugs at the insult. "Well, if she doesn't have anything to say in her defense then I suppose we'll keep going. Honorary Tribune Onora, what's the value on the damages caused altogether?"

"Well, the take was 22 silver, I took the liberty of recovering that from her when I found her. About 10 silver's worth of booze was broken in the brawl, but the bottle of oldlaw, well, m'lady, it's oldlaw. I got it as a gift from Lady Betony about 20 years back, I figure it'd be worth about... 20 crowns or so," Onora explains, grimacing.

"Right," Onora confirms. "I didn't track everything in the last 10 years, but it feels like she gets in trouble every month or two. I'd call this one of the worst incidents, but my opinion on this ain't exactly neutral."

Adelaide listens to the discussion carefully, noting that Lucinia merely glares or glowers the whole time. She tries not to sigh. "Before conferring with the other stewards on this case, I would like to hear from Lucinia," she comments, looking to the woman. "Lucinia, if all you have to say on this matter is 'piss off', we can certainly leave it at that. If you have more to say, this would be the time." She keeps her tone and her face neutral and expectant.

”Yeah, hows about fuck you ya lily-livered inbred harlot,” Luciana snaps back, launching into another string of expletives before being silenced by a sharp slap from Onora.

Rolling her eyes at the outburst, Josie announces, "Right, well, we'll need a moment to discuss what we think should be done." Stepping away to the back of the room with the rest of the stewards, Josie mutters, "Her lack of self-preservation is almost impressive. Almost. Given that she seems be targeting us and Onora, it feels to me like she's got some really big problems with authority. Bad enough problems that stuff like this ends up happening."

"Suit yourself," Adelaide answers Lucinia before Josie speaks and they step aside. She nods as Josie comments on Lucinia's attitude. "I was guessing something like that, but was having a hard time getting a read on her," she comments, thinking. "Formally, Lucinia should need to pay a fine double what she stole, or if that was impossible, we should be cutting her hand off. I'm disinclined to a sentence as inhumane as that. For communities this size, we could also banish her, but I'm concerned how that would impact future interactions with Beggarwood since I imagine that's where she would end up. The last option would be several days in the stocks."

Tapping her chin as she thinks, Josie replies, "I highly doubt she has the funds to pay back 40 crowns, and I definitely agree that cutting off parts is a bit too barbaric. Given how aggressive and vitriolic she's been, I rather doubt spending time in the stocks would impact her behavior much either. I'd prefer to have her work off her debt, but she'd likely be working for at least two years, and she probably wouldn't take it seriously anyway since she's a repeat offender. It would be nice to avoid it, but banishment seems to me like it would be the most effective way to handle the problem, unless one of you has a better suggestion."

”My only concern with banishment is the change of complicating things with Beggarwood down the line,” Adelaide reiterates. ”Then again, perhaps Lucinia would see this as the best thing we ever did to her. Unsure.”

"Ah remember a few years back, we had ol' Dustin McCrane stirrin' up a heap o' trouble like this fer a few years," Corey offers. "Count Varima gave 'im two weeks in the stocks. Seemed ta straighten him out a bit. He never quite got his act together but he also never did anythin' nearly so bad again."

Momo rolls her eyes at the behavior presented, and gives a non-committal shrug to the presented options. "If you think the stocks can sort out a lifetime running wild, then I'm not going to shatter that notion. I worry for releasing her to the Beggarswood though. Feels to me like that could just degrade things there."

"While I'm a bit wary of her causing trouble in the Beggarwood for us later on, it does seem unlikely to me that her problems with authority would be cured by a stay in the stocks," Sarina agrees. "In addition, there's the matter of that vigilante in the lands as well, who might take the opportunity to release her and undermine our authority. It also seems like a possible outcome to me that after her stay in the stocks, she would choose to leave for the Beggarwood. Either that, or she continues to cause problems here. Given that, I do believe banishing her now is the best of our options."

"Unfortunately I suppose I'm inclined to agree. It's really picking the best of a number of bad options," Momo notes drily.

Drumming her fingertips against her crossed arms, Josie hesitantly starts, "I was toying with the idea of having her accompany us the next time we go off to do something foolhardy and dangerous. And then it would be 'you want to fight so much, you're going to fight to make things better in town'. Or something like that. I'm not sure if it would be significantly different from assigning her to some manual labor that it would actually make a difference."

"Best case there is we're endangerin' someone who ain't suited fer our kinda work," Corey counters. "Worst case, she does somethin' foolish and gets one of us hurt or killed."

”Also having someone we couldn’t speak freely in front of could prove troublesome,” Adelaide adds, clearly still thinking. ”Were you getting the impression she wanted to be in physical altercations?”

"Fair points, but is banishing her to the Beggarwood really much less dangerous? This way she has a road back to living in town, should she choose to take it. And if she tries to do something extremely dumb, then we simply abandon her wherever we are and it's more or less the same as us banishing her to begin with." Josie shakes her head. "Not really, but she's been plenty violent in the past. It's not completely foreign. I just don't really like any of the other options, so I'm trying to find an alternative."