The Brotherhood of Black Banners
Knight Commander Sir Etoile Kotter
| Diplomacy | 5 |
| Military | 6 |
| Industry | 1 |
| Faith | 5 |
| Intrigue | 1 |
Expected Stat Changes: +1 Dip, +1 Ind
Knight Commander Kotter hunched over her desk. Reports from across the Banner Holds were scattered across the time-worn oak planks, their dark panels worn light and then dark again by the successive labors of the past dozen Knight Commanders of the Brotherhood. From her office atop the Spire Penitent, the Knight Commander might have seen the whole of Flechebourg laid out before her, had the curtains not been drawn against the unseasonable damp. Forty-years old, Etoile Kotter was a veteran of more than one desperate campaign into the Wood, and though the songs of her deeds had lessened in popularity with contemporary bards her grim, scarred face was an incongruous comfort to all who saw it. Alas, that her office had no mirror.
Brushing aside a patrol report from the northern march, Etoile turned her attention once more to the stack of papers that had bedeviled her for a fortnight - tax records, caravan logs, and foremen's tallies. The destruction of three of the five moons had set the whole of the Holds on high alert, and the strange emanations from the remnants of the Sword Moon doubly so, but beneath that veneer of militant unity the Knight Commander knew trouble was brewing. Squinting her good eye - the other, permanently bloodshot, had never been the same after her confrontation with the Griffin of Terecourt - she set her mind to satisfying the growing needs of the Holds. The revelation of civilized lands beyond their borders had whet the appetites of the Holds' farmers and merchants, and if they were not satisfied then she feared the constant flow of supplies and materiel she and the Council of Mayors relied on might slow. Or, though she dared not think it, stop altogether. Sighing, she made another agonized notation in her ledger and leaned back in her chair.
The air within the Spire Penitent remained electric, even these long centuries after the death of the King of Swords. The most learned mystics from the Hall of Heralds remained unsure as to why, but it buzzed at the back of the Knight Commander's mind like a gnat at the edge of hearing. Most days it helped keep her sharp, alert, but on that long night it felt like nothing so much as the siren call of the feather bed waiting in her chambers. Shaking her head against such temptations, she retrieved another candle from a desk drawer and lit it on the guttering remnants of its fellow. The night was far from over.
Actions:
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[Diplomacy 5] Cultural Identity - Duels and Event Combat
The constant training of the knights of the Brotherhood, coupled with widespread experience in their ranks against creatures from the Wood, has resulted in a robust culture of dueling and physical competition both within the Brotherhood and through the Banner Holds as a whole. - [Diplomacy] Dispatch a Diplomatic Mission west of the Banner Holds (Region 417) (+1 Animal Husbandry)
- [Industry] Buy Out TP 2 of Cows in Tir Buwch (Region 426) with Support (+1 Markets)
- [Industry] Buy Out TP 3 of Cows in Tir Buwch (Region 426) with Support (+1 Markets)
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[Military] Sir Rulman undertakes a Quest into Unknown Lands north from the Banner Holds (Region 417)
Unwilling to abandon the vanished expedition from years prior, Sir Rulman departs alone to bright light to the dark reaches of the north. And, if the stars are kind, to retrieve his fellows alive or dead.
Non-Actions:
- ...
News and Rumors:
- Celine, the young Moon Touched rescued by Sir Alain, is taken in to be fostered by the Brotherhood. While the circumstances of her birth are near as dire as any might imagine, it is anathema to the Brotherhood's creed to prejudge her for it. While the young girl is prepared to take her simple oaths as a squire, her mother is employed in the Spire Penitent, that they need not be kept far from one another.