The party ran across some documents written by Cyric Mulholland and left here - never making it to the final copies of his collected Dargan's Folly works. Some of it is fluff (I like fluff - if it wasn't for the fluff, we'd all be playing Zork on our C64's and be happy about it) but there are also some helpful hints and clues in the pages should the party take the time out to read them carefully.
Follows:
Well, I’ve done the numbers for Sir Dargan regarding the personnel costs and no matter what I do, it keeps coming back to the truth.
Building this place is damned expensive.
24 Carpenters @ 3 Nobles/day each for 72 Nobles
57 Masons @ 4 Nobles/day each for 228 Nobles
12 Limners @ 10 Nobles/day each for 120 Nobles
10 Teamsters @ 5 Nobles/day each for 50 Nobles
15 Pack Handlers @ 2 Nobles/day each for 30 Nobles
236 Porters @ 1 Noble/day each for 236 Nobles
7 Smiths @ 10 Nobles/day each for 70 Nobles
12 Architects @ 30 Nobles/day each for 360 Nobles
10 Miners @ 3 Nobles/day each for 30 Nobles
1,196 Nobles/day.
And that didn’t even include material costs.
Or any mercenaries. Or scribes. Or sages. Or livestock.
I still wonder what it is that he expects to achieve with this? We’re too far from Ponyboro, and I am still not sure that the war will ever come this far south.
But it’s not my coffers being tapped.
Cyric Mulholland
Earthmonth 21st, 125 of the 30th Age
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Some of the stories I’ve heard have been pretty horrific. In the beginning I would have tossed them off as tavern tales to frighten the locals as told from traveling blowhards who might have seen an enslaved orc somewhere. But I am of a differing mindset nowadays.
One traveler told me about how the orcs assaulted his home and set the animals on fire, stampeding the wild frantic animals into the house and laughing.
Heard about how 7,000 greenskins fired enough arrows to cover the grounds around Caer Hartford in a carpet of vibrating shafts.
Marauding ogres who tore the fingers and ears off those they were fighting and shoving it down their throats.
One man who saw his mother slit open like a suckling pig and the orcs’ wolves feasting on her still living entrails.
Babies and children being trampled and left like smears on the roadbeds.
The calls for mercy and pleas going unanswered.
Columns of smoke and fire climbing into the sky where home and cities once stood.
Magics so powerful it called for lightning from the cloudless sky and balls of fire from the earth from fetished ogres wielding staffs and rods.
Giants on the order of 20’ tall bound by chains and driven like warbeasts before the orcish hordes.
And these stories make me afraid. Afraid and filled with cold terror.
Cyric Mulholland
Spiritmonth 26th, Yuleweek, 125 of the 30th Age
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There is enough room within the walls of Caer Dargan to house close to 500 souls comfortably, twice that much should Sir Dargan be forced to. Now this is a sizeable figure in its own rights, but, with the presence of the Stronghold below, assuming we could get it cleaned up and habitable, we can shelter ten times that number.
And it’s because of that that Sir Dargan has been making efforts to spare what porters we could to clean the tunnels where needed.
Ponyboro will not hold should the unthinkable happen, although I am sure the manor houses will withstand most of the greenskin’s onslaughts.
But outside of Daernhorse keep, the best wall and impregnable façade is here at Caer Dargan. And it’s for that reason, should there be not enough room to house the seven thousand odd souls that make up and live in Ponyboro that they can be brought here to the Caer and be safe.
We will need to be ready should this ancillary plan have to be put in place as it is three days plus from Ponyboro to here.
I for one can’t imagine how bad things would have to get for Ponyboro to suffer. But then my mind starts working and I CAN imagine.
And it makes me shudder.
Cyric Mulholland
Restmonth 5th, 126 of the 30th Age
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Although we’ve gone through the majority of the Stronghold, and there is a lot of it, Sir Dargan is pushing on the architects and engineers to wrap up their work here.
We have established where the passages to the Warren are, past the ancient dwarven chapel. According to Sir Dargan, there is a wide dwarven stair that will lead us further underground.
These halls are so old, so ancient. And they have been empty too, for a century or more since the last dwarves left these places for somewhere else.
And even from the “trash” they’ve left behind, we have seen wonders and wonderful display of their art and craft.
And according to what I’ve heard Sir Dargan speak on, there is more and better in the Warrens below.
Cyric Mulholland
Airmonth 16th, Raven’s Feast, 126 of the 30th Age
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