Lastly, the Duke announces the passing of legislation that places a full quarantine over his provinces preventing entry to his lands from the outside. This means that any individual leaving his lands for any reason would be unable to re-enter until the quarantine was lifted, significantly impacting trade to his region -- so much so that revenue making up over half of the Duchy's income effectively ceases. However, there was one exception permitted that allowed citizens from the Eight Holy Evinter Isles to enter his lands. No immediate effects have come from this lockdown yet, but legislators believe that long-term effects could leave the duchy incredibly impoverished and without some basic essentials.
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Much further north in the Eriu-Innis-cultured Grand Duchy, ruled by Grand Duke Cillian Gallagher, His High Grace puts out a request for bulk grain purchases from provinces in Anglia. However, the House of Trade responds that they are no longer privately distributing excess grain and are instead--with the Blight as a growing concern--permitting the State Council to distribute grain rations to regions that are not faring very well in the coming month.
The Grand Duke then meets with his feudal council and makes the case for a monetary raid on two of House Minarith's provinces with the explanation that he would personally operate the raiding fleet and that Minarith has enough wealth to be able to spare some for the Eriunin provinces. The Feudal Council grants Cillian a moderately-sized army for the task and thus sets to task with the invasion.
The Gallagher fleet ferries the moderately-sized army to Avonn, leaving the ground troops under the command of Reimar of Calemberg, an experienced general and former Grand Marshal. Unsuspecting, the Minarith defenses are unable to repel an attack from the water and the host arrives unhindered and sets about preparing for the attack on the Avonn capital city. The Gallagher fleet secures the waters, permitting any non-affiliated non-Minarith vessels to travel through unhindered.
One shipment of wealth is sent and received by House Peirgarten from House Gallagher.
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Speaking of Anglia, House Deceres goes through with the construction of the Statue of Cedromar within the province of Inne-Hart, constructed and sculpted by one Beatrix of Ellador and paying a considerable sum for its completion. The finished product was something to marvel at, an eight-foot-tall sculpted depiction of the Prince Marshal raising a fist to the sky, dragon wings sprouting from behind him with Regalian banners flying to his left and right side. The depiction of this Anglian-born Prince was well-loved by many within the province, and it had a noticeable effect--many already adopting more Imperial neutral fashion rather than their traditional Anglian garb.
Next, Duke Lyonel Deceres meets with his feudal council to finance the cost of a festival in Inne-Hart primarily around subtle Imperial culture influences. The cost of such a festival would not break the bank though (1 Wealth Token).
Lastly, the Duke imposes a law within his duchy requiring that all males of fourteen years and older, unless hindered by disability, injury, or illness, engage in at least two hours a week of practice with an Anglian Longbow, to be overseen by local Wapnbogger longbowmen. Given as this was a commonplace sport and pastime in Anglia to begin with, the law is accepted with little detriment.
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The Archipelago Highlands were disturbed by the sound of soldiers parading through the various fields and down the numerous roads as the Duke Mac Conall and Captain Volesus Stormblade patrolled parts of the duchy for reports of Blight or strangely enough 'Blight monsters'. Given that there had been no news of any Blight monsters or monsters in general within the Highlands, and that the Regalian Government had released no warning for such, the Duke was looked upon queerly, and many of the soldiers were haphazardly assisting whilst rumors of the Duke going mad ran rampant throughout the regiment. Nevertheless, no Blight cases were reported and no 'Blight monsters' were found.
To add another layer of security, the Duke institutes a six-day quarantine to ensure that anyone who had contact with the Blight were turning into 'Blight monsters'. It was at this point that even the Feudal Council stepped in, requesting that the Duke meets with them immediately to explain what had brought about this unexplained paranoia about 'Blight creatures'. News began to spread to nearby provinces about the Duke's assessment of the Blight calamity and unsurprisingly, panic began to set in in the regions of Clannadh Alba, Mannadh Alba, Kintyr, and Sinnedh.
A single shipment of wealth is delivered from House Mac Conall to House Peirgarten. Additionally, the bar on goods traveling from Peirgarten lands to Mac Conalls was eased, now only barring the transport of non-agricultural and any goods known to be resilient to the Blight--helping ease the economic situation in Peirgarten lands just a little more.
No Blight samples are taken as the Blight has not reached Clannadh Alba.
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While other lands were slowly beginning to dig in and prepare for the Blight epidemic, Grand Duchess Tuija Nordhjem planned a large feast for the lords of the surrounding area to attend and enjoy their fill of food and drink. Each lord who would attend would receive a wood carving of a bear to represent strength, vitality, courage, and good health, yet the lords who did arrive found the gift to be lacklustre when the House Nordhjem clearly had funds to grant a much better gift than some hand-carved ornament. The lords did not stay long despite a great play depicting a Great Oak's toil and struggle for their faith having been planned, as the Grand Duchess had also invited the common folk to also engage in the feast. Needless to say, the feast quickly ran rampant with all sorts of riff-raff with ale and wine spilled to and fro, and became so unruly that House Nordhjem struggled to keep up with it. Eventually, after a great deal of the food and drink had been consumed, costing a small fortune (2 Wealth Tokens), did the Nordhjem retinue come in and shoo the common folk back out again. The common folk were happy to have been received but needless to say, the local nobility were furious with the House Nordhjem.
Lastly, Duke Stavlinge Nordhjem and his son Leidolf go about attempting to reinforce the villages and towns' buildings with defenses for the expected winter snowfall. The same reinforcement plans are sent to surrounding duchies but nothing is heard back, likely because they had plans of their own for the Winter.
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Erick von Eisner returns to the Calderliga Union Council with a grand display of wealth, distributing the amount amongst the various lords that receive him, gaining him a nice sturdy, starting amount of influence with the leaders there.
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Taking precautions against the rapid spreading of the Blight, House Morathes, or more notably the Duke Morathes, assigns Idunn Faeddurtrjam to inspect all shipments into the region for Blight-infected produce. Regardless of the region, if the shipment does not pass the checks, the entire delivery is denied and sent back.
Next, Morathes utilises Xabi Playero to attempt to gain some sort of information from the criminal elements within the underbelly of South Rivel, but Xabi returns with nothing. While he had some leads into where to begin, due to Xabi's notoriety, he was quickly sussed out and expelled from every information circle he attempted to slide his way into.
Lastly, Nefer and Yshfa are sent to coordinate with the feudal council and uncover whether the Morathes lands could rely on their produce to get through the Blight with the idea of stopping all imports and the answer was an immediate no. Due to how south they were and how little agricultural products were grown in their provinces, it was effectively a shot in both shins for the family to cut off all imports to the region. They also attempt to implement a similar food storage model to the fyrd Kade House of Trade standard, but the process would cost a significant amount of money to actually accomplish (3 wealth tokens), and it would only really store grain coming from the Kade House of Trade to begin with, as grain was not sourced in the Morathes provinces.
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House Petrou pumps a heap of money into the construction of a Grand State Shipyard for the State to make port and receive much-needed repairs in. Once it is completed, the Grand Duke opens it himself and dubs the creation the 'Athosian Drydocks'. But before long the Military of Regalia near claims it as its own, planting seasoned tenpenny soldiers, officers, and admirals at the docks to watch over construction and repairs.
The last of the money is suggested to be put toward improving the Calemberger 3rd Liners but the engineers return the money noting that the ships are about as advanced right now as they ever are going to get. Also due to how the ship is constructed, they suggest any alteration were likely to be more of a detriment than an improvement.
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Meanwhile, in Vixhall, the Grand Duchess Milena Cadieux attempts to close the deal with the Lorhauser wine merchants but is effectively ignored by them, receiving no further correspondence on the matter despite the enticement of wealth from the Grand Duchess for them to move. This makes no difference to the lands, however, and would not have even if they had moved, as the number of winemakers in Lorhauser were not incredibly high. News relating to this would later come from the Peirgarten lands. (Check next prog for more details.)
Next, the Grand Duchess offers an olive branch to the vineyard owners whose fields she had set ablaze preemptively to prevent the spread of the Blight. She dispenses a cash bonus to each of those who had their crops burned and offers a deep apology, however, the amount of wealth (1 token) is only able to be spread to about half of the affected owners, which leaves half of the owners still steadily heading toward destitution.
Thirdly, the Grand Duchess ordered the controversial quarantining of Chambery and Pays du Loiree, preventing passing merchant boats on the Schoenn River from stopping and distributing goods. This causes a stir amongst the members of the Calderligan Union Hanses, who immediately petition the office of the Lord Chancellor and State Council to charge Milena Cadieux for breaching Empire-wide Ordinance 5, preventing the free passage of trade ships through the Schoenn River, with the major argument being that despite trade being diverted to nearby provinces, their rerouting was costing hundreds and thousands of regals of lost revenue when their trade centers in those provinces could not collect their expected shipments. Legislators are perplexed as to the outcome, as 'free passage' had yet to be interpreted in the Regalian Judiciary and had effectively split judicial opinion down the middle. Some claimed that passage means only accessibility to the Crown Isle while others, including the Calderliga Union members, interpreted 'free passage' as completely unhindered travel, including docking and departure, from all provinces on the Schoenn River. Nevertheless, this would be down for the Lord Chancellor to ultimately decide. Heavy Blight checks are then installed in near enough the rest of Vixhall to attempt to curb the natural spread.
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Elsewhere in the Elven provinces, Duke Laeroth Minarith bans the importation of wheat, root vegetables, marrow fruits, and tea with the sole allowance for all other agricultural goods to help prevent Blight spread to the Minarith lands. Time will tell if this would be a good idea, as most archipelago relied on Anglian grain to fully feed their people and winter was growing ever closer. Additionally, all agricultural goods are banned from exiting the provinces of Eismarse, Valanara-Moor, Ailayan-Asse, Ylesse-Ise, and Athal-Salenn. Again, this was a precaution meant to help slow the spread of the Blight epidemic. The rest of the imports undergo the checks utilised and fostered by Privy Minister Haeddi Harhold and the defunct Schattel Committee.
An invitation was then sent to the Duke of Cëreleia, formally inviting him to a grand ball but the invitation is reluctantly denied due to a rowdy bunch of Eriunins showing up on the shores of Minarith provinces. Wanting nothing to do with the conflict, the Duke merely defers the invitation to another time but expresses his intent to follow through once the conflict has halted.
