250th birthday of HM The King (216th anniversary)
The year had turned towards its close, the chilling winds were blowing, vegetable sellers had disappeared towards their peasantly homes to spend Christmas. In the relative comfort of the Royal Palace, the King was feeling victorious that nobody had decided to notify the people of his 250th birthday.
It is not that King did not want to party, and not that he did not think that 250 years is a great achievement. But it is different with Kings, they are not like ordinary people. When King celebrates something, it requires a lot of planning, giving gifts to people, nominations, promotions, forum posts, gamemastering, and while 100 million is a rounding error in
his tab, he does not typically get that many birthday presents
back. And the most important of all is to uphold the tradition that monarchs do not celebrate their physical age, only the reign - and 50, 100, 125 and 200 celebrations are duly organized, 225 around the corner and 250 promised to be the big one, lifespan permitting.
But it all changed when the guards rode to the platform with news from the south - a convoy from Venezia is coming with a platoon of soldiers guarding an apparently most valuable cargo. They requested entry to the town to camp around San Pietro (which they can see from miles distance - it is 40 meters high and the borough does not have any walls or buildings to block its sight). At the toll gate they were asked concerning the goods. The answer baffled everybody - the cargo was 1,000 sqm of premium quality Venetian mirrors - generally believed to be more expensive than Rouen stained glass (which costs millions per sqm). And it was addressed to the King to be the birthday gift!
Now the timing of SHI and HOO in the beginning of the year was also understandable. But as was the case with those, this time also the King has not even close the required amount of IC to redeem the outlandish gift. It is the fairest to give it as a dividend of CUL, is the judgement. Ownership of mirrors - if anything - correlates with the general culturedness. Then there is the issue of Town tax for mirrors, which typically is 1 million per sqm. Here we have a precedent with VOH that was created as a bonus, but 50% of the tax still needed to be paid. Now VOH is about 10 times more expensive than the tax paid so it was not a bad "forced gift" at all. These mirrors will also be taxed at 500,000 m/sqm, which the King will bid in case someone is unappreciative enough to sell at such a price just to get the tax back.
We are now moving to the era of expansion and need more admins, and there are more capable admins than ever before. Sir Crichton and Lord Syksy are appointed Senior Admins and knighted in the Ancient Order of the King. M of WC is promoted Serjeant in the said Order.
All Knights in the AOK are gifted a 100 CKG gold Chain. There is one for sale in the market for 900 million but we don't advise selling yours while on duty, let this be known.
We smelted 1*kilobar to make the chains and the 250 CKG bracelet both for The Marquess of WC and for HH Saddam of Ramsey with 300 CKG left over. This was very elaborately minted and carved to 12 gold coins weighing 25 CKG each (one CKG per decade of life so far, and the flat disc, reminescent of the later Austrian coin, depicting more than one occasion of the King's life). Half were raffled between all the PC, rich and poor alike (with the lucky recipients being HE Forte Spagnolo, Sir Hokusai, the old witch Leila, Councillor Syksy and rather unknown onk and anarchyx), and the other half is sold in a charity Dutch auction with the proceeds given to the Town with the hopes that both devfund and the poor would get their fair share. (The 16 CKG HM coin from 1520 (the last time) is going for 40-100 million so hopefully this one will be appreciated by the market as well.)
A birthday is nothing without gifts. Since it is only a few years from the great Plague, and our cellar is not nearly in agreeable condition, we must refrain from lavish quantity of gifts and spearhead with the most exclusive quality:
Every PC will get 2*W1600M the best red wine in existence now if not ever (have to save some for the quartermillennium still 34 years away)!
Every Noble will get 25*SHI a quite nice habit - remember to borrow the HOO before smoking - sharing is caring!
Every Earl and higher will get 1*SW3 Elixir of Life and Happiness, for the long life that is needed in administrating over the provinces!
Every Marquess and higher will get 1*CAV since that is the most potent food in existence by a factor of 4.3-14.9!
Every Prince and higher will get 1*COH because this connects us more than most other things.
Every Duke will get a bottle of DOM and I will toast 3 bottles as soon as I get my drink quota back!
These gifts have been distributed but the other things will happen soon!Since celebration came without special planning, we needed to hurry to mint a medal for it. A humble bronze token will be gifted to all, and a meager extra supply is for sale at 1 mil apiece in attempt to cover some of the costs of the extravagance.
A copious amount of fine alcohol will be seen consumed as soon as the quota allows.
The ancients will also receive promotions. Everyone passing 200 years of age will be promoted Wizard (L7) and the ones reaching 250 years will be Knighted (L11).
