[WP] A 'retired' adventurer lords over some land and peasants. He is not good at his job.

...

After ten long years of service in the armored division of Doterra's wall-top, surviving a rather violent and despairing time period, and then enlisting a further seven more years as an Adventurer: Louis Piosious returned to his father's estates to fall into line with his expected destiny of regional Baron.

Despite the long absence almost completely interpreted as intentional disrespect towards the great family line (and very rightfully so) his Father took him back under wing without serious complaints. Beyond a few thrown punches, a barrel of whiskey set ablaze and thrown at him from a rooftop, and one incident regarding a forest hunt, a longsword covered in honey, and two very angry horses covered in bees: Both generations of the Piosious name fell back into whatever traditional tension was typically expected between two large burly men with both enormous egos and mustaches.

But as the time passed, ignoring those incidents (and the more immediate ruckus among the other elevated houses in the distant area now reorganizing for marriage candidates and succession rights) it was in a calm and collected manner by which Louis fell into his place upon the Northern estates. Much commotion was avoided when compared to what would have been done if he'd not chosen to return, and it wasn't long before a rival noble's daughter who fancied Louis a decent investment, was married off. In four short years following, that wife had gone and birthed both a son and a daughter, all while Louis himself was soon to inherit his Father's position as originally intended.

Right as rain, Louis carried on following in the footsteps of his many ancestor's before him: A Baron.

It wasn't much of a claim, truly. Despite the appearance of such a title (and the presumed riches that might be associated) Nobility was an odd custom of the Northern lands; distantly known and traced back along a murky history from before Doterra's formation and rise of faith. The land beneath the Piosious name technically only stretched as far as the Northern Ocean, and the main river. By decree of Church, no Baron could actually own much of anything more than their own homes and keeps while upon the blessed lands soil, but (perhaps luckily) the Holy Church had very little interest in wild forests and rock-covered, pitiful farming soil, and so it was that the permission continually granted (if only in the mind-set of social law and order) for the Baron's of the North to eb graciously provided the right to uphold their duties.

A man of experience, and known one who had left to see the world and live among its people far from the tiny swath of land his father's possessed for what seemed eternity, Louis returned and set himself high upon the minds of many as a Lord to bring change. When the peasants looked to see his massive warrior frame upon a steed riding by, many would point and shout- for he would often wave and return the favors. When children might play their stick games of goblins and knights, Louis was often known to leap into the fray as if one of their own, prancing and growling like a monster to chase them youth back about.

It was in this manner that the people came to know of him with fondness, for the New Baron was not like those who had come before him.

Not known to hold the tendencies of his father (and grandfather, and great grandfather before that) Louis cared little for monetary wealth, rarely collecting his taxes on time or in full. He was much more well known to give many free passes on their loans and borrowings, holding parchments of permitted respite upon his office so long as they promised to do their best for payment in the future somewhere down the lines (many of which he would forget or throw away with little thought or concern.)

There was also a well remembered event in his earlier years of ruling, by which Louis had accidentally burned a rather unseemly number of Church contracts for summon and arrest when the inquisitors came searching for just those very things.

To the free-er folk of the farther North provinces, Baron Louis Piosious was a man of kindness, but also of action and bravery. A warrior returned humble hero backed by a rich history of noble and lineage whose mind was set on the people. He supported their wishes, goals and dreams. He encouraged them to take matters into their own hands instead of seeking more official permissions. He spent the wealth collected on requested roads and bridges, trail-heads, hunts, weaponry, armor, and even the occasional Adventurer contract.

Perhaps the only problem and fault one might find with him, when looking objectively at the entire affair and process, was that Louis happened to be rather terrible at his job. So much as he was a Baron of the people, his true allegiance was by contract to the Holy Order that bestowed him such rights to rule, and as the years passed along, the Church's patience thinned accordingly.

Taxes were to be collected, not reinvested. Goods were to be provided to the Church, not wasted on the nameless poor of pitiful looking villages surrounded by trees and rocky hills that stretched on to pointlessly irritating distances possessing little in the way of value, all while making them tactically useless for anything but being what they already were.

The Faith was not fond of Louis Piosious, no matter what his people might think of him. In fact, for those aware of the rumors and backstabbing games of capital there were few other rulers disliked more that hadn't been met with rather unpleasant ends by odd and impossible accidents.

It didn't help matters that the Humble and beloved Northern Barron had violently dispatched more than one suspiciously large group of well-equipped bandits that ambushed him along the Holy-Roads, and gone about sending their lopped-off heads in large burlap sacks back to the closest Church Authorities with a parchment of explanation written in their blood.

It also didn't help that sometimes the Baron would send bags of dog shit in just the same manner come tax time, forcing many Church officials to dig through by hand and extract the few Gold coins he might actually include in the delivery.

So, with these facts in mind: When the tales of an Ancient Dragon forcing a bloodless surrender of the High City began reaching even the farthest edges of Doterra's territories and the familiar rallying cries for crusade against the blackened lands were called upon, it came as little surprise that Baron Louis Piosious was drafted. Even less so that every able-bodied man beneath his domain capable of making march and holding a spear, were also forcibly enlisted: Pushed towards the undesired division of irregulars to join the riff-raff of unholy sorts.

Honestly, the only real surprise was that the Baron agreed to go.

"By the gods, be this the great Jarl Congrad in the flesh himself?" A loud and blusterous voice shouted over the gathering of dangerous folk upon the man-made field beside the walls.

In the shadows of the great stone structures, a massive figure rode along an equally massive horse, dull thumps steps of hooves muffled by the mud and grim covering the now hidden stonework beneath as they rode across the filth ridden grounds. Behind the man, an entourage of no less than a dozen armored men followed, sigils of a great Red Hawk painted with bright artistic flourish on their steel plates. Each seemed refined and prepared for battle at a moments notice, discipline not lacking as one might expect from men far from the Church's immediate influence.

"And is that the great Bruce of the Iron Fang beside him?"

Two men watched the approaching figure with expressions of stern regard, like a hunter might watch a bear from below their tree-stand, considering if the arrow nocked on bow might actually be enough to deal with such a potential threat. Those expressions only soured further when the large man atop his horse, launched himself down to the ground below, expression wild and fierce as any woodland predator.

"Aye! It is! both Jarl and Fang both- though one is seeming a bit' too young and another just a bit too old." The man's bravado carried on despite the lack of interest, only seeming to cool as he looked the pair over, turning to the well-dressed and younger of the two with a deep bow. "I'm sorry to hear about your father Lad. He was a bastard to the core and I hated him more than most men, but he always had my respect. The man did his job well, he taught me much in those years I worked with him."

His bow held low, much to the surprise of those many mounted men behind him. With serious gazes, they watched the strange affair, hands waiting on their swords as their horses settled for the relative inactivity.

Gilded gloves and perfectly fit cloth and leather workings creaked as the first of the pair softened slightly, arms unfolding as the bowing man rose with a toothy grin and a hearty chuckle. On the hem of a thick woolen cloak of royal coloration, the younger man's large and scripted family crest stood out proudly in the shape of a griffon, as one of those gilded gloves extended to grasp the bare and callused one awaiting it with a firm shake.

"Pleasure to see you've heeded the call, Baron Piosious ." Jarl Congrad replied. "Although I'm surprised to see the Church hasn't yet put your head on a spike atop the battlements."

"Gods only know they've tried my boy." The Baron smiled wide, missing teeth and scars aplenty forming up to a terrifying grimace of amusement as he turned towards the other waiting figure, looking up in the difference of height between them. "And gods talk aplenty: Have mercy at the sorry sight I see here! Bruce the Iron Fang himself! I thought you went off and followed the Bastard to grave years ago!"

wercwercwerc 30 points 3 years ago*