AAR with Floris' Modpack - Akinar's Journeys

I recently stumbled upon the Floris AAR, which I became strongly fond of, and it motivated me to start my own AAR. For this matter I started a new character on the Floris modpack that I named Akinar. I chose to leave him with the default setting, as it is a convenient one for the story I planned for him. I'm playing this character with no mitigated damage, normal combat speed and good AI. If you are wondering why I have decided to start in the Swadian city of Praven, it is both for easy access the renowned Swadian cavalry and also because I tend to make my kingdom a coastal one with Praven as my capital. And here's a picture of Akinar:



Now that the technicalities are done with, I hope you'll enjoy my journeys to restore the Merovingian Monarchy!

Entry 1: Starting Anew

Praven, March 23th

Dear Diary, here is the first entry of what I hope will be many. My name is Akinar, and I was born the third son of the Monarch of my lands, Jerym and of the Duchess of Yrose. Me and and brothers, Tymar and Lyam, were all heir to the Merovingian Monarchy instaured by our ancestors, while our two sisters, Liana and Merida, were to be maried to Dukes of the realm. Tymar was known to be selfish and arrogant and Lyam to be generous and modest, while I was simply known as the quiet and obedient yet still ambitious brother. We all lived happily in Merovingia, at least until the death of my father...

The Merovingian rule, when I was born, englobed all of the small continent called Elarion. My father, Jerym, didn't much to reinforce our strength in the Realm, so our authority was starting to crumble during his reign. When my father died and passed the crown to Tymar, I was 20 years old and Duke of Eryn. Things started to go fast from there, as Tymar, proving out to be one of the worst kings of our history, became paranoiac and started to kill the Dukes of Elarion one by one. My other brother, Lyam, now Duke of Dohr, tried to put a stop to his madness, but was also executed by Tymar. It didn't took even a single year before the last Dukes started comploting against Tymar and me. The Duke of Yrose, my maternal uncle, leaded them. My mother deserted for the rebellion a month before my 22th anniversary, and two months later the Yrosian army was at the gates of Merovingia.

While the city was built to hold against long sieges, Tymar the Fool hadn't stocked up on food, and the guards themselves opened the gates after the first month of siege. Tymar was properly executed by my own uncle, and the official power of Elarion thus became Yrose. Knowing what would be my fate if I let the rebellion reach my city, I decided to give the title of Duke of Eryn to someone I had full confidence in in exchange of a chance to flee the continent. I disguised myself and started looking for a boat departing far away. The gossip in the port informed me that a ship by the name of Winds of Praven was departing soon for a land of promises named Calradia.

During the travel to Praven, which took three full months, I excluded myself from the other crew members to make sure nobody recognises me. The day Praven apeared, what I doubted was confirmed: Calradia was under-developped on many points, but the constant wars forged both strong men and strong cities. As soon as we reached land, I took off to the tavern to take a refreshing pint of ale, a luxury I hadn't on the Winds of Praven. After I sunk the pint and swallowed some pork, I retired to my room, where I am currently writing these lines.

I think I'll wait a bit to digest the abusive portion of pork I took and I'll visit Praven after, as it will probably be my home for a while. I hope I'll be able to find a way here to start my life anew...

I will write the next entry as soon as I have the time.

I'm looking forward to it.
What could improve your aar a lot is that you add some introduction to your character's life, family etc..

By the way, good luck restoring Merovingian Monarchy.

Thanks for your support, Bruce. It is good to see I already have someone looking foward to my future posts.

By the way, I planed on placing an introduction about my character and the Merovingian Monarchy in my first entry, hope you like it!

Entry 2: A Band of Bandits

Praven, March 26th

Dear diary,

It is has been three day since I last wrote an Entry. Much has happened since in the town of Praven, so let's start from the beginning.

Remember that I was supposed to visit the rest of Praven later on the 23th? Well, when I finished writing the first entry, it was already night outside, but I decided to go anyways. What I didn't knew yet was that Praven was famous in this area for being host to a large amount of bandits. Obviously, one of them tried his luck on the newcomer that I was. Luckily for me, he was clumsy with his sword, so my years of martial training made it easy to impale him on the tip of my lance. Just after the bandit fell on the ground, dying little by little, I spotted a blond haired man running in my direction. He didn't seem hostile, so I waited for him where I was standing. As soon has he reached me, he whispered in my ear that he had an offer for me and that I should follow him just before running back to were he came from.

Because looking for such opportunities was one of my goal this night, I followed him from a distance into a residence atop of a shop. Now being in a private setting, the man explained his offer. He was Ulric Fugger, an eminent merchant from the area, and his brother was taken captive by a band of bandits affiliated to the one that attacked me. As I looked like a simple warrior, and would probably be in deep trouble with the band of bandits, he saw me as the sword he could use to put an end to the domination of these bandits. Even if he respected the ability I had with my spear, he asked me to return with more men before giving chase to the kidnappers. Seeing the advantage in eliminating those bandits to gain the merchant's thrust (and money!) and also to eliminate a potential threat (I doubt they liked that I killed one of them), I accepted his offer.

Ulric Fugger, the merchant that fights against the bandits plaguing the zone.

As I was almost penniless and had to recruit at least 5 men to help me in my quest, I decided to go recruit my men directly in the surrounding villages, instead of recruiting qualified mercenaries that would be too costly from the tavern. I thus began a tour that had me goid to Azgad, Veidar and Iyindah, and on which I found 10 young men wishing to join me. With a party 10 men strong, I decided to return to Praven to recieve futher instructions from the merchant.

Arrived to the gates of the city, I decided to pay a visit to the King of this realm as soon as possible instead of going right to Ulric. My Merovingian banner and my court manners probably accredited my demand for an interview with the King Harlaus, as the guards let me enter only 15 minutes after my demand. When I entered the throne room, he admited that he didn't knew of which house my banner was and that he was curious about it. After little reflection, I decided to tell the King my story. Whether or not he believed my story is not clear, but we sympatised during the afternoon we passed together. Drunk and curious, I asked Harlaus what were his current duties as a King, to which he answered that he had to gather more troops for the eventuality of an invasion targeting Praven. Even if it seemed weird to me at first, Harlaus explained that the ennemies often tried to conquer land in the middle of a kingdom simply to split it, which, I admit, is probably not a bad idea and a sufficient reason for reinforcing the capital. Just when I was going to leave, Harlaus decided to entrust to me a letter to deliver to Uxhal to me. While I couldn't really refuse to a king and even less to a likeable king, I decided to take this messenger work as an opportunity, because of some rumors about a tournament - and a feast! - being helg in the same city.

King Harlaus of Swadia, Lord of Praven. He kinda look like my dad did, maybe that's part of why I like him.

My interview with the King done he decided to go wait at the tavern for Fugger to come at the meeting point. I barely had the time to order a diner and sit a table table that a young woman covered in black approached me. Her name was Nadia, and she was a Sarranid fleeing an unwanted marriage imposed by her familly. As she was also wanted for unwillingly setting the fire to her house, she proposed to me to join my party freely if I protected her, which I would have been a fool not to accept.  I also had a simillar offer by a drunken man of the name of Alayen, but he was asking more denars than I had in order to join us, so I politely declined.

Nadia. She looks like an interesting woman to work with, and she is impressively strong for a simple peasant.

At the expected time, Fugger joined me on the table I was sharing with Nadia. As he was impressed by the troop I levied and how fast I levied it, he soon briefed me about a group of the bandits waiting near Praven looking for prey. According to the merchant, these bandits should know were his brother his held hostage. He departed as soon as he had finished exposing the situation to us, so all was left was to act. I decided to give priority to Fugger's quest, as it seemed way more urgent to free his brother then to deliver a letter, may it be a kingly one.

We easily spoted the four bandits waiting outside the town and approached them, blades unsheated and shinning under the sun...

My little army. We may not look impressive for more "professionnal" waring groups, but we do for 4 bandits...

It was not a surprise for use that we manage to kill 3 of the bandits and capture the last without any losses or major wounds to deplore. It took almost no effort to convince the surviving bandit to tell us the location of the hideout in exchange of his life, so we soon started heading to Elberl, near which the camp was located. We were near the Veidarian forest when we stumbled upon a group of 10 looters. We decided to engage them as a real practice for my men to be ready for the raid of the bandit camp. During the battle, we fared extremely well, Nadia killing 3 of them alone with her knife and also being the only one of the team to be severely wounded. We then all agreed to take some time to recover, time which I used well at the training camp. Even if I was knocked uncounscious around 5 times and had recolted many bruises and scars from the training, it helped me regaining my ability with one-handed and two-handed weaponry.

After I triumphed over the champion of the training camp, we resumed our journey to the bandit hideout. I managed to sneak in the camp near dusk with 5 of my men, and we obliterated all resistance from the bandits, even if we lost a man in the process. While we were starting to loot the hideout, the merchant's brother came to us, happy to be free again and eager to join up with his brother. We packed up all the valuables the bandits had, buried our dead, and left the camp as soon as possible.

The offensive against the bandit camp. We can see the camp in my line of sight and we can also see one of my man maneuvering to attack it.

The travel back to the city of Praven wasn't an interesting one, so I won't spend any time telling the lack of events that accompagnied the trip. However, we heard stunning news when we arrived at the tavern: the same band of bandits that the merchant and me fought had bribed there way into the city and were now even a greater threat to the Pravenians. Fugger soon spoted me and came to see if we were back with his brother. When he learned that he had been freed, he obvsiously was relieved enought to relieve himself of 200 denars for my good services. Even thought, he was stressed and feeling concern for the security of the city, so he asked me another favour: to join a group of defenders looking to throw the bandits out of the town. I accepted, expecting a similar reward to the first one, not without reason. The group of defenders and me struck hard and by surprise the mass of bandits now squatting the streets and managed to pust them out of the city, but the defenders suffered major losses. The 10 or so bandits managed to injure 8 of the 12 defenders, even if I pulled out the impressive score of 3 kills. After proper rewards and thanks from Fugger and proper bandaging from a gratefull peasant, I decided it was time for me to retire to my chamber to write this entry and take some sleep.

I plan on going to Uxhal to see if the lord I have to give this letter to is still there and to attend the tournament there. I'll write another entry as soon as the letter is dealt with.


OOC: Next images give a clear look on my banner, my renown and my stats and skills.

~It's about time I found a worth-reading AAR!~

Anyways, Im really looking forward in this, you have a good writing skill--and a good english! 

A double thanks to you, Lannigan. I always appreciate complements on my writing skills, but it's rarer for me to have some about my writing skills in my second language - english! So thanks to you!

Ps: I'd expect to write the third entry tomorrow or saturday, so you'll see more from Akinar soon!

Akrane

Entry 3 : To be or not to be a Merchant?

Rivacheg, 6th of April

Dear Diary,
The last days have been so full of events that I couldn’t write before. I’ll start where we left over, 12 days ago.

I was ready to go on my way to Uxhal, as planned, when it struck me that I had to find a reliable way to make money if I wanted to thrive in my new life. Sure, quests like the merchant’s one were both convenient and efficient, but I was aware that most quests I would receive would probably be either harder or less rewarding. After a little reflection, I came to the conclusion that being a successful merchant would probably be the best alternative, so I headed up to the market, and spied on the good deals for a few hours.

Unfortunately, and maybe part because I was still a novice at getting the good deals, I didn’t managed to find any deal I deemed interesting enough to invest in. I thus decided to keep my money for Uxhal, believing their deals would probably not be worse than those of Praven. While my party and I were walking to Uxhal, I managed to recruit 12 new men in my party, and used a party of 10 looters passing by as a real-life practice for the fresh troops.

I soon reached the city of Uxhal, a small but fortified city, of similar size and architecture than Praven. The architects here don’t seem to be really inspired, I you want my opinion. Anyways, I headed straight to the castle to see the master of the city, Duke Delinard. To me there was nothing really particular with that lord, aside from the fact that his facial features made him look severe. He gave me a formal welcome, exchanged a formal discussion and dismissed me after formal thanks. He didn’t care much about me, even if I bring good news to him, and I guess that’s the only welcome I can really expect until I become more renowned. Aw, well I guess I’ll have to get accustomed to being no one special. The only thing that really emerged from the dull talk was his proposition to pay me if I got rid of the camp of the bandits that were preying on the lands around Uxhal. This quest sounded familiar to me, and at this moment I believed I would have no trouble at all repeating my successful bandit slaughter, so I happily accepted the quest.

Duke Delinard. Not sure if it is his reaction to me or if he always look like that, but he sure isn't welcoming to me!

Now was the time for me to attend the tournament. All the subtleties of a tournament were new to me, as it was not only my first Calradian tournament but also first tournament in my whole lifetime. The tournament I attended to was split in 6 different melees, in which 32 competitors struggled to score the most KOs, but also for impressive feats (the first blood comes to me as an example). In all rounds, I did neither exceptionally good nor bad, scoring an average of 1 point (1 KOs) before getting either overwhelmed or overskilled by my opponents. I thus finished 14th on 32, not an honorable or memorable place, but still a meaningful one since I was far less experimented than all the others. Nadia, however, fared way better in the tournament than me. In fact, she managed to finish 2nd, and thus added the 500 denars and the furs she won to our party’s still meager pile of riches.

Now in possession of valuable furs and more denars than ever, we decided to go celebrate at the local tavern. However, as soon as we entered, a clearly drunken guy tried to pick a fight with me, with no reason at all for it. I only had the time to unsheathe my blade that Nadia already beheaded the fool. To be frank, even if she’s kind of rude and creepy at times, I’m really starting to like her and to count on her to do most of the fighting. I guess that was point of hiring her, no?

Next, we decided to try our luck again in the market for finding good deals, but this time we didn’t find even a single one… I’m really starting to ask myself if I have what it takes to be a merchant…

Just after this failure, we decided that it was time for us to depart for our quest to find the bandit camp, which was rumored to be hidden in one of the many swadian forests. Even if this statement gave the feeling that the camp would be hard to find, it wasn’t has hard as I expected at first. After a little more than a day and searching three forests, I spotted a large number of different groups of bandits in the forest near Ryibelet. Two evidences came to me when I saw these bandits: first, the camp was near; and second, I wasn’t ready. So I decided to go train my troops at the nearest training camp to make them battle-fit. I had trained for around a day when I managed to make every single of my troops reach a decent level (Tier 3 of 7 in this mod). It was a though day for both me and my troops, as my half-trained soldiers tended to be already stronger and faster than me even if I had a better technique and knocked me out almost as often as the contrary.

The training done, we resumed our journey where we had left it and started going back to the forest suspected of being the base of the bandits. However, we soon saw a band of around 20 bandits walking by a forest near the training camp, so I gave the order to chase them. It was time for my men to prove their value.

The hearth of both the bandit army and mine was formed of well-equipped heavy infantry, but my army had the slight but important advantage of also counting in its rank 5 horsemen, excluding me. I said to my infantry to stand back, shields out, while me and the horsemen were to flank the enemies. This tactic worked very well, as we managed to crush the main army with only little losses (1 man killed) and hunted the remaining archers without any. We mourned our dead friend, but it was hard not to rejoice, for that these bandits were far from poor both in denars and equipment. I personally laid my hand on a better shield, sword, helmet and armor after the battle. If before the battle I and Nadia look like ragged peasants, we now at least look like decent warriors. We also had an unsuspected benefice from this fight; the bandits were holding prisoner several inhabitants of the surroundings, and I gained a new experienced horsemen and an infantry to take the place of the fallen one.

We soon arrived to the Ryibeletian forest, which I suspected of hiding the bandits I was seeking. We entered the forest without waiting and found the camp in the southern part of it, after 1 or 2 hours of search. Our attack took the bandits by surprise, and it was globally a success, even if I was injured and my shield damaged. Impressively, the camp was less rich than the bandits we previously engaged, but it didn’t really matter because of the reward that was the key of our participation to the hunt.

It was now time to receive my award. I first took off to Suno, knowing somebody there would be able to say to me where was Delinard at. I thus decided to take a time in the plaza to hear for rumors of Delinard or of good deals, since I had not gave up yet starting a career as a Trader. I soon managed to hear Delinard was paying visit to the King, probably to discuss more privately what was in the letter, but I wasn’t as lucky for what comes to deals… Is it me or the land of Swadia is bare of any commercial possibilities? I may rethink my plan on making money by market soon if this continues… I decided to go to the tavern to drink my deception, but I actually found a truly better way to bring my morale up: there were two men in the tavern, a robbed merchant and a guy I suspected to be a robber, which both wanted to be recruited in my party. I hired both, even if I thought that there would be conflict between the two, but they shortly proven to be good friends in the end.

Marnid. His market ability might be useful sooner or later.

Borcha. If he is a suspicious character, he is still a master at tracking, which may prove usefull in many situations.

Now that I had no matter left to attend in Suno, I departed with my party to Praven, at which we arrived at without any trouble. At Praven, we found out that Delinard was already gone for long, and there wasn’t anyone there to inform me where he was, so I decided to return to my other activities until I would come upon him in my journeys. With my precedent failures at spotting good deals, I decided this time to talk to the local bartender, as he probably knew at least a bit about the surroundings’ economy. I was right in that assumption, as if the bartender didn’t knew much about luxury goods, he did knew that Praven was over-producing ale while Sargoth was currently in shortage. I thus decided to go buy myself some barrels of ale to trade them with the Nords, and ended up with 666 denars worth of merchandise.

After another story-less trip, I managed to sell the ale for 730 denars, making for a small profit, but it was my first, which made it seem big to me. Even if I had no true reason to go there, I decided to check the tavern in case there was anything interesting to do there, and I stumbled upon an old camp follower lady, Katrin, which wished to be a warrior in my party. Who would have I been to refuse that?

Katrin. A rude woman, but she never seems to be out of ressources.

Katrin having been in the North for longer while than any of my party members, she was able to tell us that there was well-known market in selling iron from Curaw and Dhirim to other surrounding city, so we took off to try that next.

The tip was good, as we later managed to see, and the iron truly was cheap, but I bought so many that we had around 100 denars of losses, successfully cutting my will to trade for now. I then tried to hunt bandits, a way I knew and loved to make money, but that also failed me this time. I lost 7 of my best trained men by a horrible tactical fail I managed to make, about which I will not talk to spare my dignity.

Since all was going wrong, I decided it was the time to take a break from adventure, drink my distress in the local Rivachegian tavern and write the story of the last few days.

My troubled mind, still confused by the turn that took the last event, can’t decide what to do next, at least now. I’ll write next when I will have founded my way and that my ideas will be clearer… so I might never write back…



PS: I know that there is fewer screenshots than in the last entry, but I kinda ended up noting all that happened on paper, which made me forget I had to take screenshots for long periods of time. I also took them in down times, so they probably aren't the most interesting I could have taken. Sorry! I'll eventually work up my own way to take notes on my AAR...until then, be patient! 



OOC: Here are my new equipment, stats and renown. Check it out!

Sorry im late, i was busy reporting that ******* at 5 topics  .

BTW, so far so good, Well im quite dissapointed that you didn't post some screensots at da tournament (Floris make it so freakin awesome!), but that's alright. Anyways, im curious on your decision to be or not to be a merchant, I suggest you to be a Warrior, but its your AAR, so its up to you! .