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It was during this meeting that Ostler de Pumaj took matters into his own hands, not only did he sit on the Mage's Circle but was also a wealthy contributor to the church of Wee Jas. He killed the majority of the senators in the hearing and took control of Kurant in a bloody coup. He quickly gave the church of Wee Jas all of the policing power, seizing the powers of the church of ST. Cuthbert, with whom they shared the policing up to that point. But, after only a few short weeks of rule, Ostler was mysteriously decapitated in his bed. Although there had been speculation there has been no clear culprit. |
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Only a few days after Ostler de Pumaj was killed the church of Heironious decided that they needed to step up and put their own in power. The leaders of the church chose Sir William of Davenport, whose deeds were spread wide and far by those who knew of him. He seemed to be blessed for even on the foreign campaigns when his men were slaughtered, Heronious kept this man safe, he seemed the perfect candidate.
So the church put him in Barfgose as a leader, temporaty if need be. And as his power grew he began to take on less and less of his religious duties, since he is responsible for not just his congregation but the whole country.
Shortly after he came into power he decided that the church of St Cuthbert was ineffective in it's policing powers and that the church of Wee Jas was too effective. So as one of his first decrees, Sir William gave teh church of Wee Jas policiing powers over mages, and only the contracts they put out for criminals directly given to the church. So the policing would be done by the great church of Heronious.
Once the Paladin's of Kurant were assembled a group of heroes came rushing into Barfgose with tales of a Death Knight on their tail. Sir William sent out his Paladin's and it was all he could do to watch them die by the hundreds, but thanks to his good friend Baphast the gnome throw his deadly javelin's the death Knight was defeated. Sir William prayed for their brave souls, then returned to dinner.
Then the elves in Laousterman, recognizing the problems arising because of the upstart king, decided to secede from Kurant, seeing it as an opportunity to once again have complete self rule. This brought forth many Gurgache elves from the dark forest, as well as some druids to their side. Many elves that stayed out of Kurantian society came out of the wood work to band together with their bretheren in the mighty elven city.
Seeing this threat to his rule Sir William decided to put down this uprising quickly, however upon further inspection it seemed that the elven army was much mightier than anticipated. And the Republic had all but gotten rid of their army, so that the guilds would not have to defend against militia. So Sir William decided he needed to raise an army and train it quickly, since he had already threatened Laousterman without assessing their capabilities.
To build an army Sir William would need money and lots of it. But the countries coffers were bare thanks to the guilds. So his first idea was to raise money was to make money. What better way to unite the kingdom than by making national coins, that could be traded, and that were much more valueable than the plain gold and silver discs. His second idea was a tax on every household that did not have a son of age to join the army. This plan was very effective in getting volunteers. But, what of the wandering merchants and tradesman? Surely it wasn't fair to have them be free of the burden their fellow men had to carry. So Sir William established Tax Houses in every major city. Visitors are required to pay the duty for that town a percentage of it going to Kurant and a percentage to the city. And of course there are the wandering taxmen as well.
All of this taxing left many people without means to tithe, so many of the churches began to look to business endeavors to finance their teachings. For example, the church of Wee Jas begun a systematic takeover of the town of Reylon, one of the chief shipping yards, after the disaster 2 years ago.
Needless to say that although peace has come between the elves and Sir William he still pushes for more ways to enrich the coffers.
Sir William has been in power for a little over a year now, and his coronation is set for the fall. |
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