Votes for this Turn:
A1 - Combat - 1
A2 - Leisure - 3
A3 - Scholarly - 1
A4 - Diplomacy - 9
A5 - Language - 31
A6 - Communications - 2
S1 - Wikipedia - 44
S2 - Steam - 0
S3 - Paradox - 0
S4 - World - 3
Ideas:
A Book of Old Tales for Rob (Medium Purchase) - 18
A Ribbon for Sansa's Hair (Small Purchase) - 6
Unicorn from Skagos for Robb (Large Purchase) - 6
A Seashell Necklace for Yara (Small Purchase) - 3
Some Veil-style food for Ned (Small Purchase) - 2
Hire a tutor in Falconry (Ongoing Purchase) - 3
Hunting Falcon for Sansa (Medium Purchase) - 1
Rolls for this Turn:
Personal: Wikipedia
Thanks to Sessue Hayakawa, Cersei Lannister has now passed down her Prodigious skill at Acting (aka Lying Convincingly) to all 3 of her children: Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen “Baratheon.”
(This roll went a bit further than most, because I assume that Cersei, Joffrey, and Myrcella were all already Talented or Gifted in Acting/Lying already, so now all 4 of them get the bump to Prodigious.)
(I was tempted to leave out Tommen, who I don't think has any natural skill at acting, but I decided to leave him in for the sake of extra chaos.)
World: Runescape Wiki
Thanks to the Amulet of Ranging, everyone in Winterfell now has a Knack for Archery.
Except those who already had some kind of skill, who get boosted up to the next level.
So you go Knack → Skilled and Sansa goes from Talented → Gifted.
Story:
Arya had decided Silco was ready for real training now, which in her mind meant the sort of training important enough to deserve saying in a slightly louder voice than usual and with far more dignity than the occasion strictly required.
This was not entirely nonsense for once.
Silco had been getting better.
Not perfect, because he was still Silco and therefore a little idiot by trade, but better all the same.
So the new thing the two of you had been working on was hold.
Not just sit.
Not just stay.
Actually holding still while tempting things happened nearby, and the world did its best to lure a wolf into embarrassing himself.
Jinx was better at it than he was, which was only fair since Jinx was better at most things that required patience, self-control, and the ability not to fling herself at the first exciting movement like she had been personally insulted by stillness.
Silco could do it now, though.
Not always for long.
Not cleanly every time.
But long enough that Arya had taken to looking pleased in the hilarious way only a seven-year-old could when she thought she had proved something important.
Yara found the four of you at this and watched long enough to understand what the lesson was meant to be.
Then she pointed out, quite sensibly, that the yard proved very little if the wolves lost their minds the moment the world got noisy.
If the training was real, she said, then Winter Town was the proper place to test it, because Winter Town had: carts, people, shouting, smells, food, and enough distractions to make any young beast forget its principles if it had any weakness left in it.
That was hard to argue with.
It was also a good excuse to get out of the castle for a while.
The wolves had grown enough by then that taking them into town no longer felt like walking willingly into disaster.
Luperca was still the largest by a clear but shrinking margin, while your Jinx and Jon’s Ghost were nearly the same size now, and the rest were not all that far behind in the race to become creatures too big for anyone’s comfort.
So the lot of you rode into Winter Town together, with Arya nearly bouncing in the saddle from the importance of it, Yara dry as ever but clearly in good humor, Silco trying very hard to remember he was meant to be a trained creature and not merely a moving appetite with paws, and Jinx carrying herself with the easy long legged confidence of a beast who already half believed she knew more than the rest of you.
Janus came too, because Janus came wherever he pleased and had long since decided that your business was his business.
He flapped, glided, and judged from above as if appointed by some feathered court no one else had been informed of.
Winter Town did what Yara said it would.
It tested them.
There were too many smells, too many voices, too many children, too many hands full of food, and too many chances for either wolf to disgrace itself.
Silco nearly did twice, once for a dropped sausage and once for a cat that had the poor judgment to move quickly in front of him, but Arya corrected him both times and with enough force in her voice that he actually listened.
Jinx did better.
Jinx always did better.
Still, by the time you had gone a little way through the town without a full catastrophe, Arya was so pleased with herself and Silco both that no one had the heart to interrupt it.
Then Janus started cawing over a storefront like he had discovered treasure or trouble and could not much decide which interested him more.
You looked up, followed the sound, and found he had perched himself over the book merchant’s place.
That was interesting enough on its own.
Before going in, though, you stopped and told Jinx to wait outside.
This was partly because she would obey and partly because nearly grown wolves and cramped little shops full of precious things did not belong together unless one had far more coin than you.
Inside, the air smelled of parchment, dust, old glue, and the sort of care that only existed where every object could be ruined by one damp fool in the wrong mood.
The merchant had books from Oldtown, or so he said, and whether every last one truly had made the whole road north from there did not matter much because they looked dear enough to have suffered for it.
It was one slim little volume that caught your eye, though, a book of fables from across Westeros, and when you asked the price, your first thought was that the man had mistaken you for someone with a richer father or fewer senses.
He did not seem surprised by the question.
He explained it plainly enough, likely because he had done so before.
Books cost what they cost because every single one had to be written by hand.
Every page took time.
Every line took time.
Parchment costs money.
Ink costs money.
And the men copying the thing needed to know how to read and write cleanly in the first place, which was rarer than most buyers liked to admit.
Even a thin little book was still hours upon hours of somebody’s life bent over a page.
That was what you were paying for.
Not only leather and parchment.
Time, skill, and hands that did not blunder.
That made sense at once, and it also made the little book feel heavier in your hand.
The stories inside were not rare to Rob in the sense of being unknown.
He would have heard most of them before and likely acted half of them out when younger and less solemn.
But that was not really the gift.
The gift was the thing itself.
A real book.
A book of his own.
A book no Stark had personally owned before, even if it was slim and simple and full of tales children knew.
When you counted against the allowance you had gotten these last two months, it was all of it.
Every bit.
That gave you pause.
Then you decided to stop overthinking.
You bought it.
When you came back out, Yara took one look at your face and another at the parcel and chose not to ask too much, which was decent of her.
Arya was more interested in explaining how very well Silco had behaved while you were inside, though this account did not match perfectly with Jinx’s expression or with the sausage grease still shining faintly on one side of Silco’s mouth.
Still, the outing stayed cheerful after that.
Arya and Yara got their baked goods.
The wolves held together well enough to call the thing a success.
And the ride back to Winterfell felt easy in the way some days only did when they had gone better than expected, and no one wanted to pick at the edges too much.
At supper that night, when everybody was in their places, and the room had settled into the ordinary scrape and murmur of a meal beginning, you gave the book to Rob.
At first, he looked confused.
Then he saw what it was.
Then he understood what it must have cost you, and the whole shape of his face changed in a way that made the purchase feel right all over again.
He handled it carefully, like he knew exactly what kind of thing he was holding, and when he looked back at you, there was something in him that had not shown itself in a while.
He thanked you properly.
Then he hugged you, and not in the absent half-distracted way people sometimes did while already thinking of the next thing, but genuinely and with enough force behind it that you knew the gift had landed where you meant it to.
That was the best part of the whole day, or nearly.
Across the table, Aunt Catelyn sent you a small smile.
Uncle Ned gave you a nod.
Neither of them made a speech, which was a mercy.
They only looked like they understood exactly what you had spent and exactly why you had spent it.
So the day ended better than most did.
Arya had proved Silco’s training meant something outside the yard.
Jinx had proved she could still be trusted where chaos was available in quantity.
Janus had, for once, led you to something useful instead of merely standing over your life like a feathered accusation.
And Rob, for a little while at least, had looked more like the brother you remembered and less like the war had finished with all of him.
Skills:
Combat:
(3) Westerosi CQC - 50/100 (+10)
(3) Westerosi Swordsmanship - 45/100 (+10)
(4) Northern Archery - 70/100 (+15) (Skilled)
(3) Northern Equestrianism - 18/100 (+12) (Knack)
(3) Heavy Armour - 3/100 (+15) (Skilled) ←
Diplomacy:
(4) Interpersonal Communication - 10/100 (+15) (Skilled) ←
(1) Public Speaking - 75/100 (+5) (Skilled)
(4) Management - 100/100 (+25) (Prodigious)
(2) Stewardship - 38/100 (+7) (Knack)
(2) Northern Law - 29/100 (+7) (Knack)
(2) Westerosi Law - 19/100 (+7) (Knack)
Language:
(4) Common Speaking - 25/100 (+25) (Knack) ←
(4) Old Tongue Speaking - 35/100 (+25) (Knack)
(3) Valyrian Speaking - 7/100 (+25) (Knack) ←
(3) Common Reading - 51/100 (+25)
(1) Westerosi Runes - 62/100 (+12)
(3) Valyrian Reading - 24/100 (+25) ←
Scholarly: (+Minor Boost)
(3) Math(s) - 30/100 (+10)
(3) Accounts - 30/100 (+10)
(4) Northern History - 55/100 (+15) (Knack)
(3) Westerosi History - 20/100 (+15)
(3) Northern Peoples - 90/100 (+10)
(2) Westerosi Peoples - 100/100 (+10)
Leisure:
(3) Northern Hunting - 13/100 (+10)
(2) Fishing - 5/100 (+5) ←
(1) Swimming - 95/100 (+5)
(1) Sailing - 10/100 (+0)
(1) Acting (Lying Convincingly) - 10/100 (+0)
(1) Gardening - 75/100 (+25) (Prodigious)
Earning: 3
Spending: 3
Banked: 12
Rolls for Next Turn:
T4 = Objects/Effect at Home
L5 = Mildly convenient
Voting:
Main Actions: (+ = Low, ++ = Mid, +++ = High)
A1 - Train with Jon, and sometimes Rob and Theon, in the Yard. (Combat Focus)
(Reputation: ++ Jon + Theon, + Rob)
A2 - Go on Hunts With Jon and Sansa. (Equestrianism + Leisure Focus)
(Reputation: ++ Jon, ++ Sansa, - Cat)
A3 - Keep up your studies with your cousin, Sansa, and Maester Lewin. (Scholarly Focus)
(Reputation: ++ Sansa, + Cat, + Ned)
A4 - Act as your Uncle Ned’s page with Rob and Theon. (Diplomacy Focus)
(Reputation: ++ Ned, + Theon)
A5 - Spend your time teaching/watching little Arya and your Wolves with Yara. (Language Focus)
(Reputation: ++ Arya, + Yara, + Ned)
A6 - Follow Rob until he shares his Friends and Activities with you. (Communications Focus)
(Reputation: + Cat, + Ned)
Personal Rolls Sources:
S1 - Wikipedia (On Cooldown 2/2)
S2 - Steam Games
S3 - Paradox Wiki's (D30)
S4 - World Rolls List (D12)
Information:
1 - On Today’s Purchase:
Income Spent - 3
Reputation Gained:
Rob → +++
Cat → +
Ned → +
Along with what we got from the main action:
Arya → ++
Yara → +
Ned → +
The next gift to Rob will need to be different, and even then might not be as successful as this first, large, unexpected gesture.
Write-In/Questions:
1 - What should we buy in the winter town next turn, and for whom?
“Save the Money” is a valid vote still, and if it wins, then we’ll have more options once it comes time to send our Minion someplace new in a few more turns.
Also, please keep it to things we could realistically get in Wintertown.
I know that Unicorn one is fun, but in practice, that would wipe out our savings and make us look like a spendthrift to all our family if we actually did it.
That's not to say I won't write it if you guys vote for that, just that if it wins, we’ll be taking a decent reputation hit with everybody, and I want you all to be prepared for that.
These little wintertown excursions are meant to be small ways we can spend our pocket change to boost our reputation with the Stark Household, especially people we might not otherwise interact with much, like Yara or Aunt Cat.