RebellionStudio

Beyond the King's Words · The Ledger

The whole kingdom, drawn as one chart.

The Ledger shows what the crown has been told, by whom, and when. It never shows the truth. Here is what it is made of, the rules that make it play, and four moves you can make on it.

In-game Ledger of the Realm: economy, court, war and intelligence drawn as glowing constellations
In-game · the Ledger of the Realm

The realm's ontology

Everything is a star. Everything between them is a thread.

Beneath the stories sits an ontology: a model of every kind of thing in the realm and every way they connect. Manors, regiments, ministers, reports; the flows, ties and accounts between them. The Ledger draws it as a star chart you can turn, zoom and give orders in.

One chain of the realm's ontology Peasants work a manor, which yields civil goods. A war workshop governed by the Steward converts them into strategic goods. A supply line governed by the Marshal carries them to the 3rd Regiment, which garrisons a town. Duke Tomas holds the manor. Two reports describe what the regiment received, the Marshal's account and the regiment's own count, and they differ. Civil goods also feed the peasants. Intelligence Court Economy · War works yields converts in converts out supplies in supplies out accounts differ garrisons in feeds Peasants Manor Civil goods War workshop Strategic goods Supply line 3rd Regiment Town stores 7 of 10 · morale 54 holds governs governs Duke Tomas The Steward The Marshal Marshal's account Regiment's count describes

One chain out of hundreds. Stars are objects, threads are typed links, the small figures under a star are its properties. The thread between the supply line and the regiment has split in two: the Marshal says he shipped in full, the regiment counted seven in ten.

Objects

Every manor, regiment, pool of goods, person, seat and report is a star. Twenty-odd kinds, hundreds of instances. Manors fold into their province until you open it.

Links

Every relation is a typed thread with a verb: yields, supplies, governs, holds, rival, describes. Flows carry a running light; its thickness is the believed monthly flow.

Properties

A regiment's stores and morale, a pool's stock, a province's people: gauges inside the star, never stars of their own. Each figure carries its source and its age.

Orders

Right-click a star or a thread and the orders on it appear with their cost. Each one is a real order of the game, nothing invented for the chart. Opening the Ledger stops the clock.

Economy · goods and gold, by province War · the host and what feeds it Court · the people and their ties Intelligence · who told the crown what

The rules that make it play

Six rules of the chart.

  1. Every thread is a lever and a weak point. The crown can thicken it. An enemy, a bad governor or the weather can thin or cut it.
  2. One source, many outlets. The same grain feeds the people, feeds the war workshop, or is sold. The chart draws the split, and you choose it.
  3. The governor is usually the reporter. The minister who runs a flow writes its account. With one source the thread looks thick and healthy whatever the truth.
  4. The structure is always lit, the figures are blurred. You always know that an army eats. How much yours ate this month is exact at home, a word of mouth in the rest of the realm, and a dashed question mark abroad.
  5. Distance is a cost. Stores and reports both travel the roads. The longer the line, the more it loses and the later it speaks.
  6. The truth comes out. The debrief sets every report beside what happened. A liar's record is permanent.

Played out

Four moves on the chart.

The same orders, costs and rules the game uses today. Names are from the opening cast.

I

War · Court · Intelligence

The governor who reported in full

What you see
You gave the war workshops to Chancellor Aldwin Reeve, the best administrator at the table. He is also venal. For months the thread from the workshops to the strategic stores is thick and dark, one source, his own account: converted in full. Then the 3rd Regiment's own receipt disagrees with the stores it drew, and the thread splits into two strands, each wearing its seal.
What you order
Right-click the thread: Audit the war workshops. The Spymaster's clerks go through his books and a credible letter comes back with the true figures beside what he claimed.
What comes back
He skimmed two in ten and reported the flow whole. He is caught: a permanent line on his card, and a new thread drawn from him to the workshops that only an audit could reveal. Now you decide. Give the workshops to Mirella, who will resent being passed over less than he will resent losing them. Punish him. Or keep him, say nothing, and let him go on skimming, with the record kept.
  • −15gold, the clerks' fees (treasury)
  • −3the crown's clerks in his books (Chancellor)
  • −12caught skimming the war workshops, spring of year 1 (Chancellor)
  • +4given the war workshops (Steward, if you reassign)
II

War · Economy

A regiment at the end of a long road

What you see
The riders of Corwyn are mustering, so you march the 3rd Regiment two hundred and fifty kilometres west. On the chart its supply line stretches and thins: the road eats fifteen in every hundred shipped. The stores gauge under the regiment falls each month, morale drifts toward the starving mark, and the loop between the supply line and the regiment begins to glow dark red: hunger in the ranks.
What you order
Two levers. On the war workshop, Run it in full, so more reaches the stores at the near end of the line. On the regiment, Show on map and march it into the nearest town you hold.
What comes back
A garrison draws its stores through its town: no road, no loss, and its morale mark stands five higher. The thread shortens to nothing and the red ring fades. The cost is that the regiment now sits where the town is, not where the raiders are.
  • −1the workshop's reeve re-sets his fires (Steward)
  • −2gold, the column's provisions on the road (treasury)
  • +5morale mark, under walls (3rd Regiment)
III

Economy · Story

One granary, three mouths

What you see
The harvest is failing and Cassian is preaching to the hungry. In the Economy cluster the pool of civil goods has three threads out of it: feeds the peasants, converts into the war workshop, sells for gold. The chart shows the split. When the grain runs out, the ring from stores to fields to unrest glows dark red: empty stores feed unrest and the fields fall behind.
What you order
On the workshop, Let it go cold, so the grain stays grain. On the river market, Buy 50 gold of civil goods here, to carry the capital to the next harvest.
What comes back
The famine ring stops glowing and the preacher has less to preach about. The war workshops stop, the strategic stores stop refilling, and the Marshal will have words about it at the next council. You chose the people over the host, and the chart will remember when Corwyn comes.
  • −1the workshop's reeve re-sets his fires (Steward)
  • −50gold of civil goods bought at market (treasury)
  • −1gold, the factor's fee (treasury)
IV

Court · Intelligence

Follow the thread to your brother

What you see
Click Duke Tomas in the Court cluster. His whole lineage lights, two hops out: kin to you, patron to two of the great houses, and holds every manor of the river country. Follow those threads down and they yield into the civil goods that feed your capital. The granary keys were never a metaphor. The bread of your city passes through his hands.
What you order
Beyond the northern border, Brackmoor's threads are dashed with a question mark: the crown knows Queen Isabeau keeps an emperor, not what her host eats or who sells her iron. On her province, Show on map to send a spy. The Ledger closes and arms the map's own aim, because it never invents a second way to pick a point.
What comes back
Weeks later a new star appears in the Intelligence cluster: a report, with its source, the day it was observed and the day it arrived. It firms the dashed thread into a thin solid one. From that day it yellows with age until a fresher rider replaces it.
  • −1gold, the spy's purse for the road (treasury)
  • +1report on Brackmoor, observed in spring, arrived at midsummer (Quill's rider)

Built from rows, not code

Every kind of star and every kind of thread is a line in a table: its ends, its verb, which minister governs it, what the intelligence layer may hide about it. A new kind of thing is a new row. The Ledger reads live values from the real systems through named readers and simulates nothing itself.

Belief, not truth

Every figure on the chart passes through one gate: what the crown has actually been told. Your own provinces and regiments are exact. The rest of the realm comes in words. Abroad you get the holder, the stance and a guess at wealth, until a spy or the merchants firm it. The debrief at the end shows the truth beside every report, and who lied.

Tin soldiers in ranks on a dark table

In development

Read the chart before anyone else.

The Ledger is in the current build. Join the playtest circle for early access and a direct line to the team.

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