DaveShack's Land Grant

[Cyc]

Tile number 75 - Two tiles North of Edoria, Desert

Tile number 75 is hereby ceded to DaveShack for the care and maintenance he so chooses. The Monarch grants you this land and all that are attached to it. All food will be sent to the King for distribution. All other resources profitable or not, remain with you to do as you choose. Good luck.

 

[DaveShack]

Before the land grant
Dave, Master of Arms to the king, took a trip around the borders of the kingdom to study the military of neighboring nations. He saw axemen, archers, chariots, and horse archers, all of which were familiar to him. Then he noticed some swordsmen, and studied their weapons and tactics. Interesting, he thought, swords forged from iron are formidable indeed. And when wielded by well-trained men of honor, they will be even more powerful.

He resolved himself at that moment that the kingdom must have a source of iron. Passing through the desert on the way back to Arete, he noticed a deposit of the rare ore from which iron is extracted. Excited, he hurried back to the palace and approached Cyc to request stewardship of this rich deposit as a land grant from the king.

Present day
Now, he thought, we must begin the work of mining and preparing this iron for the day that it will be needed for swords and other hardened weapons. Now, where is that work party? And he set off to find someone to build the roads and dig a mine. Along the way he started thinking ahead to training a vast army of honorable swordsmen. And so the concept of Samurai began to form

 

[Diamondeye]

OOC: Some info on Samurai:

Spoiler :

The word Samurai is derived from ancient japanese, the verb to serve is the best direct translation. Since "That I may serve" is an Arkadian Populist slogan, it seems rather related RP-wise. You can change "ancient japanese" to "anciant aretan" for the game ofcourse

The Samurai were warriors of great skill, and besides fighting, they were trained in all arts of painting, writing poems, brewing tea and soforth. This was part of the code of honor they followed. It is named "Bushi-do" in japanese, where bushi menas warrior and do means way or road. "bushido" translates directly to "The way of the warrior". (On a not particularly related side note, the fighting discipline Tae-Kwon-Do is formed of the words Hand, foot and way, meaning the way of the body).

Most Samurai were of "noble" birth and had servants to assist them, and were fed by the peasants serving under their lord, typically the head of the family.

The masterless Samurai were called Ronin, and had, for some reason or another, no master to swear loyalty to. Many of these could not feed themselves and resolved to robberies and raiding parties instead.