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Lokapala posted:I wonder how much an assumption of food scarcity is correct for this area and this time period. there are reasons for the assumption of food scarcity for this area and time period, but those reasons have either just started to happen or haven't happened yet. it has been pretty peaceful in Bavaria for the last fifty years or so, the farms are doing well, exciting innovations are burbling their way up from the Emperor's new holdings in Italy... the future currently looks like sunshine and roses! the old men grumble about how it's colder and it rains more than it used to back in their day, but name a time old men did not grumble about such things. sure would be a shame if there was some kind of 'little ice age' starting that would kick off a cycle of crop failures, leading to political upheavals, leading to warfare, leading to burning down/looting villages like this one to try to starve out rivals' cities and keep the army in the field longer, leading to more food scarcity, leading to more political upheavals, ultimately resulting in most of the Holy Roman Empire burning to the ground in a war that stretched from Spain to Sweden. and with it, a continent-wide understanding of "german peasant" meaning "actively starving to death and eager to kill to avoid it." you know how the Pennsylvania Dutch are a thing? there is a reason there were an AWFUL FUCKIN' LOT of Germans trying to get out of the home country in the mid-1600s. fortunately for Andreas' lunch plans, that's all a century in the future. back now, bavaria's fat, happy, and sees no particular reason to assume that's going to change any time soon.
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Apr 2, 2023 18:36
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Torrannor posted:Amazing post, both informative and witty. This helps giving the game more context. So it's not a huge imposition when Andreas invites himself to other's meals. i'm more up on English social mores around this time than the German ones, but in many cases it was not only not an imposition, it was a way for the hosts to flex on the neighbors. behold: i am both personally nice enough and well-off enough he's staying with ~me~. the miller is a poo poo of a man in general, but we have, in fact, slightly offended him by the fact we're staying with the Gertners. what, are the farmers offering you better accommodation than he can???? are you saying they're BETTER than him!?!?!?!?! which, yes, he'd charge more for comparable accommodations and we'd also have to talk to him on a regular basis. every meal we share with someone who's not him is a further demonstration that while he's got money and power he cannot buy respect. owned, rear end in a top hat. (sucks about his wife and son i guess)
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Apr 2, 2023 19:32
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other fun things to know about the time period: the position of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire has less power than almost all kings and most dukes. most of what they are supposed to do is be a neutral arbiter between the feuding princelings of the Empire; up until extremely recently the generally accepted strategy for electing the next Emperor was making sure the weakest and most easily intimidated candidate got the job, to make sure nobody got any ideas. a couple years back, though, the head of the House of Hapsburg (their jaw has not yet gone Full Incestmode, but it is already to the point they are not great at closing their mouths) splashed a truly obscene amount of money around and bought his favored grandson the job. Charles the Fifth is Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Lord of the Netherlands, and Titles To Be Named Later. Hitler and Napoleon stood masters of Europe for the blink of an eye; Charles V basically singlehandedly resurrected the idea that one day one christian ruler would stand above all others, and unite all of Europe under his banner. the only power that could stand against him was France, and everyone including the French knew that if it came to a straight up fight the best they could hope for was to bloody the Hapsburgs on the way down. and then, because when you think you're in the driver's seat of history you invariably do something really stupid to gently caress it all up, Charles V said "hey the Italians have a lot of money and not a lot of armies, I should send my armies over the Alps into Italy so that can be MY money." stop me if you've heard this one before: the empire with its boot on the throat of the world launches a war of choice in a place it's a pain in the rear end to get to out of the idea it's going to make money off of it. it is too rich and powerful to call the result a straight up failure- after all, it does take the territory- but it would be very difficult to call the result a success, given what a waste of money, time, blood, and imperial focus it will turn out to be in retrospect. so, good news/bad news for Andreas: the good news is the Emperor takes almost no interest in his Empire unless something is SCREAMING for his direct intervention, and even then they're lucky to get more than an "i don't care, handle it." he can rest easy knowing imperial law is not going to get turned upside down tomorrow. the bad news is that imperial law currently reads "whatever the local Prince/Bishop/Prince-Bishop says, goes, unless it pisses off a neighbor who's got more troops than him. if he breaks the law what are you going to do, ask the Emperor to rule in your favor lol" Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 06:07
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a minor touch, but one I love: Sebhat is a great political operator. this is the guy whose home church sent him to Rome as their representative for the Grand Priest-Off, and as such you have to pull some real poo poo to put him off his game "I saw a spirit running around" from a child is not going to mess him up. it would have to come from a respectable adult, in an environment where half the people of the town can hear, in the middle of the abbey, where other monks might have heard, for him to go 'oh poo poo that's bad.' the vast majority of what the Inquisition did, for most of history, was show up at monasteries where the monks were getting up to conduct unbecoming of the church (i.e. trying to summon spirits) and telling them to knock it off with varying degrees of politeness. they were essentially the church's Internal Affairs department... up until about fifty years ago, when Pope Sixtus said "hey in celebration of the Reconquista, the King of Spain can name some inquisitors to make sure the recatholicization of Spain is complete." the King of Spain promptly threw a ton of money and power behind turning the Inquisition into exactly what you picture when you think of the word Inquisition. thumbscrews, torture dungeons, all that fun stuff. and that -could- have been the end of the story, a generation-long spasm of Spanish zealotry, except hey, remember the last thing i posted? about how a King of Spain is currently Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire? the people a good senior churchman is supposed to call when there's g-g-g-ghosts about have some shiny new toys and very few qualms about not using them in the name of establishing their power. hopefully this whole event will just conveniently slip Sebhat's mind when he returns to Rome. the alternative would be, how you say, Bad.
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Apr 5, 2023 22:51
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Torrannor posted:That was pretty disheartening. The poor woman! for most of recorded history, being old and childless was a fast and unpleasant way to die! andreas' time just adds the joy of the church taking all your stuff because they can. (In some small fairness to the church they are not the only ones trying this move back now; there are a lot of minor nobility willing to piss the little people off in the name of getting some more land to play with.)
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Apr 20, 2023 14:06
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Black Robe posted:I want to pick Ferenc, because frankly he deserves it, but since we didn't find a weapon or any physical evidence of how he could have done it, I don't think we can get him condemned. Explain how much of it, though? A Terry Pratchett line sums up the contemporary approach to justice pretty well: Lord Vetinari believed if there was a crime, there should be punishment, and if you end up punishing the person who committed the crime that's a happy bonus. The purpose of this court will be to decide who takes the blame for murdering the baron, and that is very much not the same thing as looking for who actually did it. There are details and people that, if mentioned, will have the archdeacon decide immediately 'welp, that's my job done, clearly they did it, crazed peasant with a grudge, death by public torture, thanks for the help kid, if I never see this shithole again it'll be too soon,' and these have less to do with convincing murder evidence and more to do with who the people who look kind of guilty are.
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Sep 3, 2023 14:33
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Weird BIAS posted:The widow. It’s not right but you might be sparing her in the long run considering medieval law about widowers. it's a piece of very good writing. she almost definitely didn't do it. she has been relentlessly hosed over by everything about her society. the remainder of her life will be spent as a charity case in agonizing pain no matter what. and if you are looking for someone whose punishment will keep everyone happy, it's her. so, Andreas and you the player: what does justice mean, when the truth is unavailable? vengeance against an rear end in a top hat? keeping everything kind of as it is? pointing in the direction of a guy you think might have done it and saying 'he's got bad vibes?' we don't even have enough information to gesture at whatever the monk was talking about with a sister. you have been handed a sword in a dark room you know has a bunch of people in it and been told to swing it. have fun.
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Sep 6, 2023 18:33
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our buddy the executioner is a fun little glimpse of the future. back now he is a strange and terrifying figure, the inconveniently human appendage in charge of executing the justice of the powerful. in far, far too few years men and women will DREAM of the days when such figures were so few, far between, and not to put too fine a point on it, reserved. you get him and his pals together for a carouse after a long day's work and things get Fun.
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Sep 19, 2023 16:45
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the trial is such a good setpiece there's an obscure bit of American history, mid-Whiskey Rebellion. Alexander Hamilton, full of piss, vinegar, and conquering warrior pride, having shot quite a few of his men for demanding their general finally get around to paying them for their service, is getting his crackdown on. and midway through a meeting with an informant, he realizes he is not being given valuable intelligence, he is being asked 'hey could you go beat up some rear end in a top hat who my family has hated for a generation' by a guy who has up until now been playing him. and he gathers what dignity he can, says "You go too far, sir." and immediately heads right back to civilization, having learned his lesson about assuming there's no way some filthy loving peasants would be able to play his dumb rear end. yes. there are some notes with weird handwriting lying around. understand, master mahler. the Archdeacon has been doing this for quite some time. there is a word for inquisitors who try to chase down every last mystery peasants present them, and it is "sucker." decorum says someone gets publicly executed for killing the Baron. that is non-negotiable. it would be preferred if it was someone whose death makes the Church look good, so any excuse to not kill Pierro is worth taking. beyond that? just give him someone quick, easy, and in a perfect world someone whose loss will inflict a lasting wound on the town, to show them what happens when you raise a hand against a nobleman. so hurry the gently caress up and give him what he's looking for, because he doesn't want to be in this shithole for one meal longer than he absolutely has to.
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Oct 5, 2023 00:20
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