The Last Valley, now on Kickstarter!

Didn't you hear? It's Zinequest time! You know, that time of year when every small press RPG publisher puts out a campaign to raise the funds to publish their personal pet project!

I don't know about you, but I love this time of year. There are so many projects that I'm looking to back. And, even more than that, I've been waiting to publish this setting I've been working on for over a year!

Check out the link and you'll hear about this guy

The Last Valley is a setting where a secluded valley, ruled over by a powerful and corrupt cult, has been beset by chaotic incursions of undead, lizardmen, and possibly even outside invaders...

Take a look. The project launches tomorrow, be sure to click that green button to notify you of when it goes live! Let me know what you think, I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to what you have to say about it!

Oh, I also published a new class for OSR play called The Vaulter. A spellsword class of underground dwelling descendants of an ancient civilization.

Silver Swords issue 2 update and new Kickstarter!

Production of Silver Swords is in full swing, with all the articles laid out and almost all the art laid out, all that's left is to check and double-check the zine for errors and improvements, massage the text, and send it to the printers.

As was promised when we unlocked our final stretch goal, I've completed and uploaded the trifold pamphlet dungeon "Escape from Drydon Keep!" to DTRPG as a pay what you want title so that it can be enjoyed by anyone. Here's a link.

And, finally, that brings us to the new Kickstarter. 

Vallakia is a micro setting in zine format. Inspired by things like Ravenloft and Darkest Dungeon, it's a grim setting where people fight to survive every day of their lives. Players can be from Vallakia, or can find their way into the Province through the dense, usually impenetrable fog. It comes packed with multiple locations, a short history of Vallakia, a dungeon, and a quest generator!

Come check it out on Kickstarter!

Red Ink Adventures hacked and slashed

Recently on Reddit, Dreaming Dragonslayer posted his own creation called Red Ink Adventures, based on Into the Odd and Maze Rats where you play as a bunch of deeply indebted adventurers looking to pay off their debts.

Inspired by this hack, I made my own! And everyone's favorite sleepy wyrm-killer made a post about it! Feel free to check it all out! Make your own hacks! (P.S. I hear he wants people to make more creditors!)

Here's a changelog, to see what's new.

1. Flexible target numbers: For when GMs want to adjust the difficulty of their game on the fly.
2. Side v. Side initiative. To speed the game up, both sides roll and go in turn.
3. Combat has had a few changes: First, Attack rolls are treated as opposed rolls. Second, Armor is treated as a second health bar that must be depleted before health is damaged, it "refills" after combat is finished. Finally, damage dealt is reduced to a simple 1, and 2 if you roll double the enemy's defensive roll.
4. Death is more likely now. And scars are a negative modifier, rather than positive.(Originally, I was going to have scars deal damage to an ability modifier until healed. Felt a bit too mean.
5. The last change is that you can roll twice for modifiers. Originally my concept was to have them both be added up to make a more powerful character, but that's a bit much. Instead, now, you roll twice and take the preferred set.

Reflections on a setting written by a child

Memories

Boy, they sneak up on you. January 1st is coming up in just a few weeks and that day constitutes not only another year spent circling the sun but my 6th year playing RPGs. Not much of a milestone, especially compared to others in the blogosphere who have been playing since before D&D was even published. But it's still more than a quarter of my life.

In honor of this unimportant anniversary, I'm going to share one of my earliest creative thoughts born from RPGs with you all.

Bear in mind, I was 15 at the time.

ZOMBIE ISLAND

Yeah, my creativity sectors needed some work. They still do.

So here's the skinny. There was this ancient empire a thousand years ago. the "Totally-not-Roman Empire". They held sway over such vast territories that, after the fall, communication between these many distant lands broke down.

One such place was a tiny island hundreds of miles away from any nearby coastline. The place had been settled shortly before the fall by a young prince as a sort of pet project. He founded on the island a town to house the workforce as well as a castle for himself and his friends.

Eventually, this Prince went on and inherited the Empire, doing his part to cause its decline. But the island was still inhabited, thousands of people farming the land, fishing the seas, and thriving off of the goods shipped in by the Empire.

When the Empire fell, the ships stopped rolling in. By the time powers on the mainland had reached the point of wealth and stability where they could take ownership of the island and support it with long-range shipping, the island had been utterly forgotten. What few scholars and administrators who tried to reach out to the island were met with ambivalence by a world more consumed with its own petty squabbles.

In this time, the island fell into disarray, the population which numbered nearly ten thousand before the fall, dropped to less than a thousand within a decade. The issue was not just that the island couldn't support the former population by itself, but it was also hit with an infestation of the dead.

Where exactly they came from nobody knows. Some say a necromancer, some say it was just part of the cataclysm which befell the Empire, some thought it was the Gods taking revenge on their faults. But no one knows for sure.

During the collapse, the people of the town quickly fell to the dead. But, eventually, the town organized a defense. They tore down houses and villas to build walls and protect themselves from the onslaught of the dead. But not all the survivors currently living can be found within the ruins of the town.

The castle is still occupied, but not by the Prince's decadent friends, no. The new denizens of the fortress can be charitably described as "insane". A pseudo-religious cult of about 50 "knights" who don thick plate armor and mount up on their barded horses and ride forth to kill the dead who cover the island.

That's about as far as the setting ever got back when I first wrote it in 2014. Here's the original design document. The last edit I made was in 2016, when I came up with the god awful name "Roltarich".

Some comments I have on this setting as an adult.

It certainly has potential. There are some interesting questions raised: Why can't ships reach the city now? How was it forgotten? What befell the Empire?

Why do the Knights ride out daily? Where do they procure armor and horses from? Are they religious? Insane? Scared?

What really caused the dead to rise? A necromancer? A plague? The gods?

If fully fleshed out, this could make an interesting mini-setting. I may take the time to do that, I may not. Only time will tell.

Did you have any questions about this setting? Did you like it? Hate it? Drop a comment and let me know!

Silver Swords issue 2 is is live on Kickstarter!

As of yesterday, the Kickstarter for the second issue of the Role-Playing Game zine Silver Swords is online, and we're already almost halfway to our goal!

Come check it out and see what you think of the project! I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!

Silver Swords Issue 2 Kickstarter!

With art by our returning layout designer Ariana V.S.!

Silver Swords Issue 2 is looking for contributors!

Hello!

My name is William Cord, and I represent Stronghold Press Games. We are looking for contributing authors and artists to provide quality content for the second issue of Silver Swords, the roleplaying zine!

First and foremost, we are looking for dungeons, small adventure modules, maps, and worldbuilding for Fifth Edition and OSR systems, but we are also open to ideas you may have for content and would like to discuss that with you. We expect these articles to come in around 750 words but are flexible to change on the subject, so long as it is well communicated.

As well, we are interested in including short comics to this edition of the zine, and would love to hear from artists on this!

Payment for articles will be a $20 flat rate as well as a pdf copy of the completed zine, if accepted.
Payment for comic strips will vary depending on the work. For $15 for a 1-3 panel strip, up to $45 for a full-page comic, if we accept it.

The deadline for submission is tentatively September 30. We would like to be in contact with you before then.

As mentioned above, all articles are subject to approval before you are paid. Poor quality content will not be purchased nor published. Thank you for your understanding.

Please feel free to send an email to strongholdpressgames@gmail.com with your content ideas and we will discuss the particulars of the project!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Silver Swords Design Survey results!

A few days ago, I put together a survey and posted it to a couple of subreddits and a few MeWe pages. The results everyone has given us has been very useful in helping decide how to layout our next issue and what to fill it with.

We asked a total of 5 questions with an extra response line for adding your email to the list to hear about our next issue. We aimed for as few questions as possible to get the data we need in order to keep the response time nice and short.

We got a total of 51 responses over the last few days, not exactly a Pew Research Center survey size, but more than enough for us to gauge the general opinions of those who would read our zines.

Firstly, we asked the respondent's age to help us understand our audience. This one somewhat took me by surprise, as a young man of only 21, I expected the ages to be weighted around the 20's, but that wasn't the case.

Under 18: 5.8%
18-25: 7.7%
26-35: 25%
36-45: 25%
56-55: 30.8%
56-65: 3.8%
Over 65: 1.9%

Next came a question asking how interested respondents were in buying Zines. This one also happily surprised me, with over 2/3rds of all asked selecting positive responses to the idea.

"Very Interested!": 21.2%
"If it strikes my fancy": 46.2%
"It's kinda cool, I guess": 15.4%
"If they're cheap": 9.6%
"Only if they're free!": 7.7%

Next were two questions asking people what system they would enjoy seeing get coverage in upcoming issues and what type of content they would prefer. Given that these options allowed write-in answers, there are a bit too many responses to list them all here, so I'll give you the highlights.

Systems:

OSR D&D games got the most love as far as systems go, with 34 respondents selecting it. Next was D&D 5e with 16 votes, followed by Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., Warhammer Fantasy, and Call of Cthulu all with 8 votes each.

Content:

The responses here were a lot more varied, giving more votes to all sorts of ideas, again I'll list the top responses. 

Adventure modules/Dungeons came in first with 41 votes, that's almost 80% of all respondents indicating they would like to see these in upcoming issues!
Area maps/Worldbuilding came next with 30 votes.
Articles on gameplay came in third with 24 votes.
DM/player advice columns came in a close fourth with 22 votes.
Rounding out the bottom of the list(excluding the write-ins) were Game reviews, New Classes, and Fiction with 14, 13, 8 votes, respectively.



All in all, this survey gave us a load of good information to help in putting together issue two and the issues following it. We're grateful to all who took the time out of their day to answer these questions and help us refine our craft!

Silver Swords Design Survey

You may have seen the link floating around the internet the past couple of days but, if you haven't, here it is again.

We have been working on planning and designing the new issue of Silver Swords, taking into account all the advice we received from the last one and making this the best product we can. To help us do that, I've thrown together a short survey to get an idea of what people want to see in the zine.

We'd love to see as many responses as possible, and thanks for the good feedback we've been getting so far. After it's finished, I'll compile the results and post them here, for reference.

Here's the link again, just in case. :)

Pamphlet Dungeon Jam: Labyrinth

My submission to Nate Treme's Pamphlet Dungeon Jam is live on itch.io and ready to be downloaded, printed, and played!

Here's the gist of the thing:

"The great Wizard Cull is a hero to the peasants and nobles alike, a man of honor who saves all those in need.

Little do they know, he has a darker side. The Magic User is a worshipper of Chaos, and uses his immense power and wealth to play games on unsuspecting travelers. The Labyrinth is his oldest game.

Discovered underneath his tall tower in the Hinterlands, the dungeon has been stocked with many terrible foes for Cull’s endless games.

If you can escape, great riches will be your reward. But if you cannot break free of this terrible place, your corpse will become just another on the pile!"

And here, take a look at the first page of the trifold dungeon! Available now as a PWYW title on itch.io!

The Barony of New Tower

At the Battle of Terric Hills, a skirmish between two quarreling Nobles, Duke Estone d'Lombard(Fighting-Man 13) was saved by one of his soldiers. A peasant from some far-flung village of his. In a moment of gratitude, he swore to the man that he would make him a lord for his actions!

Carrying out that promise was harder said than done, Duke d'Lombard may have no issue with granting just rewards to all, but his vassals didn't like being on equal footing with one of their subjects, and thus objected to every fiefdom with the Duke tried to grant him.

The Duke knew he could never grant a true fief to the man who saved him, but also felt a burning desire to keep his word. And so he found a compromise. Yorick(Fighting-Man 1), the peasant in question, would be granted a tiny plot of land from within the Duke's own domain, but would fall under the vassalage of the neighboring Duke Islay(Fighting-Man 9)so as to assuage d'Lombard's own vassals.

Duke Islay

That spec of territory to be given to Yorick was barren save for a village with less than thirty residents who barely eked out an existence farming the inhospitable climate for what food they can and selling the strange baubles they create in their small thatch huts.

To try and ease his mind about saddling Yorick with this excruciatingly poor land, so poor in fact that Duke d'Lombard had never once collected taxes from it, he had a tower built for him right outside the village. 

Thus the name of the fief, New Tower, the tower itself is a simple structure. A mere two-story building with a hall for attending to the Laird's business as well as a kitchen on the first floor, a trio of bedrooms on the second floor, and a ladder to the roof where lookout can be kept.

To help the Laird Yorick transition into his new ruling authority, he was given a small stipend from the Duke, as well as the aid of three competent men-at-arms. As well, a traveling knight by the name of Sir Colin Byrus(Cleric 4) swore himself to the young Laird out of respect for his heroism and is now teaching Yorick his letters, which he had never learned being a poor miner.

Sir Colin Byrus. Ladies everywhere curse his vows of chastity.

Usually, this small valley, nestled deep into a low mountain range, would be quickly forgotten by all involved. But, as he surveyed the lands for his Laird, Sir Colin discovered a cave, not on any maps, and none of the locals would dare speak of it. While Exploring the place, he quickly learned that there was far more to the cave than meets the eye.

He left the cave, not willing to risk leaving Yorick alone to rule without training, and with some danger bearing down on him. Instead, he sent word to the nearest town to the alert the Duke who would, in turn, alert the Prince at the capitol, Makara, who will then create a Quest and allow the Adventurer's Guilds to dispatch parties to inspect and deal with the menace.

Of course, this bureaucracy brings with it only more bureaucracy, and already Inspectors, Assessors, and even a Banker looking to set up shop have arrived in New Tower. It looks like this dungeon was just what the village needed to bring it into the world...

Silver Swords PDF live on Drivethrurpg!

Stronghold Press Games' first major product, the 40-page zine titled Silver Swords which contains over a dozen articles covering all aspects of role-playing games! You can find the zine here!

If you'd like a sneak peek of the contents of the zine, take a look at this free two-page PDF containing a side quest, a new monster, and four new magic items!

All backers of the Silver Swords Kickstarter should have received their PDF of the zine and of Maverick! through Drivethrurpg!

Here's a look at the articles contained within the zine itself! 

Banking in Makara

Everybody uses the Royal Bank of Makara to secure their funds and change their money. With branches in every town and countless villages, it is by far the largest bank in the country, even making it's presence known worldwide.

The Royal Bank offers a few different ways to store your wealth and get something back from it.

The first is that any money you deposit into an account will be used to fund dungeon delves and other profitable endeavours that will bring dividends back to BoM. All accounts receive a flat 1% guaranteed yearly return on investment.

The next is government Trust Certificates. Essentially, this is investing in the Royalty itself. This money goes directly to the Prince who uses it to fund many worthwhile acts. TCs receive a 1.5% yearly RoI for periods of 5, 10, or 30 years. You cannot request your money back before the end of the period.

In addition to these safe and insured savings methods, BoM also offers more aggressive, and dangerous, investment methods such as Plunder Funds: An investment in a number of dungeon delves with a 4% average RoI, but with some risk.

As well, Direct Plunder Investments allow people to purchase their own shares of dungeon delves. This method is reserved for those with lots of capital to start with.

Agriculture in Makara

While Makara's main export is trade goods, it also proudly grows enough good to provide for itself without the need to import food from another foreign power, who could then use it against them.

Makara has no singular main crop, instead choosing to diversify its agriculture to provide security against famine or crop blights. The three major foodstuffs grown are corn, wheat, and potatoes. These three crops make up the majority of Makaran farmland.

In addition to these, lemons and oranges are a very common cash crop grown to be sold at the nation's ports to sailors for their long voyages.

In the Northeastern Highlands of Makara another cash crop is grown, Tabak. The leaf of the Tabak plant, when crushed, packed, and smoked, causes a feeling of euphoria among those who use it.

The many minor highland lords who dot the hills and valleys of the inhospitable terrain often set their peasants to farm as little food and as much tabak as they can, so that it may be sold in the cities and towns of the Western coast and provide the noble with a much higher income than they could ever hope to earn otherwise.

The Makaran Census and Excise Office

An oddity in the world of Emberfell, the Makaran Census and Excise Office is a bureaucratic agency made to handle all issues relating to trade and census data. Including, but not limited to, levying tariffs, inspecting trade goods, recording immigration and emigration data, and detailing the total number of houses and inhabitants across the nation.

Every city and major border entrance is equipped with a Census and Excise Office, or CEO, and anybody coming through that location must make an appearance in the office before attempting to do any business.

"Manic Scribe" by Matthew Stewart

History
The first CEO was established in Makara shortly after trade with the Wood Elves was established and the volume of travelers entering Makara exploded to uncontrollable levels. The newly crowned Prince Raket Algot tasked some of the best and brightest minds with finding a solution to this problem. Thus the Office was born, and continues to serve a similar and important duty to this day.

Impact
The impact of the CEO should not be taken lightly, some estimates says that it raises tax revenues by almost double due to properly valuing and taxing all commercial goods which come through, as well as more adequately documenting every citizen of Makara, thus allowing taxes to be levied against them.

In addition to this, the CEO employs a large number of Makarans, providing them with work and a decent living, which allows them to contribute to the society in which they live.

Transportation in Makara

In a country as reliant on trade and commerce as Makara, roadways and adequate forms transportation is a necessity. This is why so many of the long roads across the country are paved. The main highway of Makara leads from the border with the Wood Elves in the Southwest to the Settled Lands in the North, and likely sees millions of travelers per years across the breadth and width of the long road.

The most common sight along the roads is the Road Vigils, Makara's own branch of law enforcement dedicated to patrolling and guarding the long stretches of highway and defending against the ever-present scourge of banditry which plagues any wealthy nation. Following them, the average traveler, whether wealthy or poor, on foot or horseback, are a common sight traveling for business or for pleasure to and fro the many destinations Makara has to offer.

Next are the freight and passenger wagons that, as their names would suggest, carry people and commerce across the realm. Horses are rarer this far south than they are in the Settled Lands, and are therefore more expensive. Causing wagons to operate by mule or oxen, instead. Many poorer merchants ply their trade with only a single mule to their name, thus the common moniker of "One Mule Business" often being used to denote a poorer businessman.

Art by David Lewis Johnson

Next to horses Elk are an even rarer sight. The species is closely guarded by the Wood Elves and it is rare to see any other race riding them, lest they be well respected by the Elves. An Elk can easily cost a wealthy merchant his whole fortune just to obtain one.

Makara and the Dwarves

Courtesy of Photobucket

While it would seem that most of the foreign relations of Makara revolves around the Wood Elves, Hobgoblin Empire, and the Humans and other ilk of the Settled Lands. The relationship between the Principality of the Dwarves beneath their very feet is very important to the defense of the small nation.

The few outposts of the distant Dwarven Homelands that dot the subterranean corridors of Makara represent the end of the influence of the short-statured, underground dwelling folk. The "Great Highway" for which the Dwarves are famed does not even reach the borders of the Principality. Instead, the only Dwarven settlements here are distant military posts, here to guard against an incursion by the vast Kobolds, Troglodytes, and Lizardmen who dwell in the caves and underground of the Southern Reaches.

It wasn't until years after the founding of Makara that these scant few Dwarven Soldiers made themselves known to the City. The Dwarves enjoyed the passive relations with the Makarans, and even the small amount of trade which took place between the two peoples. But it was quickly apparent that the Dwarves had little of value to trade, having brought very few of their miners with them to these faraway lands, they had very little by way of wealth and so made a new agreement with the City-state.

In return for food, money, trinkets, and entertainment. The Dwarven Veterans would establish a new outpost directly beneath Makara where they would build a forge to craft equipment from the Soldiers and Sailors above, as well, they would assist in training Makaran Soldiers in the ways of Dwarven warfare.

This agreement served to strengthen the Makaran Army at a crucial point in time, leading the quick conquests of the surrounding territories which make up the Principality today. And it has only brought the Dwarves and Makarans closer together. They both enjoy very close relations and have agreed to assist each other in their times of need.

Makaran Elections

Elections in Makara are a simple process and are decided by a simple totaling of votes. Whichever candidate has the most votes in their favor wins the election. There are no parties, officially, but people of like ideologies tend to stick together and support each other.

Who can vote?
There are no restrictions on who can vote according to race and gender. Instead, restrictions are placed on residences. Two individuals may vote per established Home of Record. Residences are left to decide who their two voters are

Common Houses represent fewer votes per capita. With only one out of every ten of the residents, decided by the common house administrators, being allowed to vote.

Royalty and Nobility are forbidden from voting or from endorsing/supporting political candidates. Instead, they have important duties during election time. In Makara, it is the Prince's job to oversee all elections to ensure there is no corruption or lying taking place.

What's a Home of Record?
Well, I'm glad you asked! An "H-O-R" as they're more commonly known, is a residence of any sort(House, Apartment, Hut, top floor of a bar) that has been officially recorded in the Census and Excise Office and has taxes paid on it every year. Those H-O-R's with unpaid taxes are not allowed to vote come election day.

How do they vote?
Citizens vote by having their vote recorded at the voting booths placed in the City Hall of their respective city. The votes are recorded and the names checked against the list of people in each HOR and, should discrepancies arise, the first two votes from any Residence are taken as the official votes and the rest thrown out.


Who tallies the votes?
The Prince's Office of Elections handles the collection and tallying of all the ballots. The Prince himself than announces the election winners one week after the initial vote was held.

Nobility in Makara

The Noble Lords and Ladies of Makara occupy an important place in the societal table. Despite the very advanced and, in many ways democratic, nature of the Principality, old ways still hold value.

Social Hierarchy

The social hierarchy in Makara is in many ways the Feudal table of hierarchy that we all likely know well from grade school. The only real change is that Guildmasters and Merchants in the Lords and Knights cross-sections, respectively.

Courtesy of Feudems.com

Royalty
Makara has no king, but it still has royalty. The Prince of Makara is the latest in a long line of men and women who have ruled the country for the last 80 years. Succession is typically by primogeniture, with the ruler's first born child becoming the next Prince or Princess. But it is possible for a Prince to nominate another member of their dynasty to succeed them, although it is rare.

Nobles
The Nobility of Makara mostly exist in two places; as courtiers to the Prince, living in the capital, receiving an income from the Royal Court, and serving the Prince how he deems fit. Or as landed Lords across the country, mainly the rural areas. Landed Lords rule over vast domains of sparsely populated farm or borderlands that provide, respectively, food or protection to the rest of the country.

Marcher Lords
The Margravates, Lords, Stewards, and Knights of the "Marchlands", or the uncivilized borders, are very important to the defense of the realm as a whole. Constantly engaged with raiding tribes from the Orcish Wastes, or angry border Governers from the Hobgoblin Empire, these lands are always ready to fight, and the men and women levied from the towns and villages have far more military experience than their fellows in the more peaceful interior of Makara.

Knights
The most well trained and experienced soldiers in Makara are the Knights. These heavily armored men and women are employed by Lords, Guilds, the Army, and even the Prince at times to lead the rank and file soldier of the realm and carry out precision surgical strikes against valuable foes.

A knighthood can be granted to anyone by any knight, but the rank and respect of the person who knighted someone carries a lot of influence into how that new knight will be treated and respected by others. A poor knight from the country who can barely afford chain armor is not someone you'd prefer to be knighted by. But the Prince himself knighting you? There is no higher honor.

Some knights, especially in the Marchlands, can be granted rulership of a village or even a small town in order to gain income from the settlement while also organizing it into a more defensible and competent military asset.

Commoners
The vast majority of Makaran citizens are commoners. Men and Women who are free to make their own way in life but, also, not entitled to any power or wealth. Merchants, Guildmasters, Lawyers, Politicians. They all come from this level, which just goes to show how far up the social ladder an average person can rise in Makara.

Peasants and Serfs
Serfdom and Peasantry are not common in Makara. The only real holdouts of these old acts are in the Marchlands, where Lords can argue the need for absolute servitude by those whom they outrank. Many Peasants and Serfs make a break for the cities and towns where they find their freedom as Lords are not allowed to hunt down these deserters from their lands.

Makaran Education

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Higher education in the Principality of Makara revolves around the Makaran Academy. A famous institution which specializes in the study of things relating to money and law. Some of the world's great scholars of the last few generations have been educated here. But that does not mean it is the only school in Makara.

Public Institutions
There are not many locations offering free education to the citizens of Makara. In fact, there are only two, and they are both in the City itself.

The first such institution we will discuss here shall the "Makaran Grammar School for the innocent youth of the City" more commonly known as the Grammar School. This location offers free education to all Makaran children between the ages of 6 and 12, after that, children often assist their parents working and can no longer attend the school. It does not teach the children many subjects, but any education, no matter how rudimentary, has value in this world. The list of subjects taught includes literacy, basic mathematics, and even some history.

The next, and final, location of public education in Makara is the "Grand Museum and Library of the Prince of Makara" also known as the Library. This dual-purpose structure houses thousands of books which have been collected by the Royal Family over the decades of their power. The Museum wing also contains many of the treasures which the city-state has acquired over the years. It is quite a source of pride for Makara, and many diplomatic interactions take place in the Museum simply to show the power and wealth which the nation possesses.

Wikimedia Commons

Private Colleges
There are a further three Private institutions of higher learning. These locales are operated by the wealthy and for the wealthy. The poor average Makaran is not welcome within the walls of these selective institutions. Both Chartered Makaran cities have a college, the third college is in a more unique settlement.

Chaeport - Bards' College
Chaeport, the coastal city which borders the Wood Elven lands and handles most all trade from them, is home to the Bards' College the only institution for hundreds of miles offering a robust education in all things Bard. Any instrument known to the world can be learned here, the library has a vast collection of Epic Poetry and Wood Elf Sagas, classes in seduction and charm are often packed to the fullest, and very desirable by all the wealthy young nobles and merchants' children.

Very rarely, the College can convince a Wood Elf, masters in charm, to teach a course or two for an exorbitant fee. Despite this, it's not hard to find a Wood Elven Advisor to the Faculty.

Oakmont - College of Agriculture and Engineering
The College in Oakmont offers full courses in the study of Agriculture, as it pertains to managing vast farms, and in Engineering, as it pertains to both Civil and Military pursuits. The price of attendance at Oakmont is very high, so much so that many wealthy patrons of the school instead offer up their land or privileges in exchange for the honor of their child attending.

Graduates from Oakmont tend to find themselves working outside of Oakmont or even beyond the borders of Makara itself, as they are well sought after by other nations the world over for their talent in both raising crop yields and thus staving off famine and in improving the defenses of great fortifications. Whatever work an alumnus finds for themselves, it tends to mean large amounts of wealth flowing back into Makaran banks, as they are so well trusted that you can likely find a branch of a Makaran bank in every notable capital city in the Settled Lands.

Brennaburg - College of Military Theory and Strategy
Brennaburg's College is a much different beast than the others discussed on this list. After the Noble citizens of Oakmont began demanding more and more privileges than were granted to any other resident of the City and were refused, things almost turned to bloodshed and violence. Things were on the verge of chaos before a wealthy merchant offered to help the Nobles found their own city on the caravan routes between the Settled Lands and Makara, where Oakmont also lies.

Art by Windfall Designs

This solution was not beloved by many, but it brought peace to a dangerous situation, and that is all that was required at the time. Since then, Brennaburg has grown up in the shadow of Oakmont. The merchant who helped found the city was granted a Noble Title himself and now rules a small fief close to the city walls. Brennabrug is still overshadowed by the wealth and influence of Oakmont, but still, as Nobles do, the city aspires to greatness. It is attempting to gain a City Charter from the Prince himself, but that is a complicated situation to be discussed another time.

In the aftermath of unrest in Oakmont and the founding of Brennaburg, all Noble students were banned from attendance at the College of Agriculture and Engineering. As a result, Brennaburg founded its own college. Being a Noble institution, it was quickly influenced by the often violent and militaristic nature that Noble society is well known for. The school now educates the world's best Tacticians and Strategists, sought after as advisors and leaders of Mercenary orders across the Settled Lands. Although, there is quite enough to keep them busy here, with the Hobgoblin Empire of Ukredia right across the border, often sending probing parties of raiders into Makaran lands...

The Makaran Academy
Too much to be discussed here in this small article, the Makaran Academy is deserving of it's own article and will, eventually, receive one.

Taxation in Makara

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Makara's government is supplied via a plethora of taxes. There are many wacky taxes that are common in any early renaissance society. From the Salt tax to the Window tax, Makara finds many interesting ways to pay for their basic upkeep. But to fund their more enterprising endeavors, the Princes have found many wealthier sources of income, three of which we will discuss here.

Art by Luigi Castellani

"The Dungeon Tax"
Dungeons generate a massive pile of coins, without a doubt. For the first few years of Makaran history, the wealth from these adventures went untaxed by the Government. But that only gave rise to a country where the guilds were far wealthier than the country itself. That had to be remedied, and so the Dungeon Tax was put into effect.

The terms of this tax are that when a haul is recovered from a dungeon, a representative from the government must be called to assess the value and then take 3/10ths of the assessed value as the Prince's cut. After this, the nearest settlement to the location has the right to take 1/10th of the haul, as a result of having to live with the danger.

This tax is likely the single largest income stream for Makara, as there's no such idea as an "income tax" at this place and time. Although the idea of a wealth tax has been passed around, as the old Empires taxed their citizen's wealth directly.

LAT
The "Lone Adventurer Tax" applies to any person or group who enters a city with a suspected dungeon haul in tow. Seeing as how most valuable dungeons are claimed by a Guild as soon as they are discovered, any dungeon which is unclaimed is fair game to any adventurer who wants to take the risk. These smaller dungeons tend not to have as much wealth as larger, claimed ones.

This tax is not very heavy, expecting the contents to be quite light and these Individual Adventurer's not being so wealthy, the Prince lays claim to only 1/10th of the wealth of these hauls, with the settlement closest to the dungeon receiving 1/20th of the wealth.

Art by David L. Johnson

Sales tax
It may not come to mind as a large revenue stream for a government but Sales tax is quite valuable when you take into account the fact that wondrously enchanted magic items are sold for thousands or tens of thousands of gold coins.

Sale tax is placed at 1/20th the value of any item sold, and the Prince is very aware of those who would claim false sales to then pay less taxes so he has an agency of people who go around inspecting the contents of every store in the city and then later comparing that to the listed value of items sold.