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| Action Id: 3691 | Crisis: | Participants: Jaenelle, Brianna, Mailys, Tesha, Apollo, Josephine(RIP), Mabelle(RIP), Berenice, Alexio, Sabine(RIP) and Nurie | |
| Status: Resolved | Submitted: Jan. 6, 2020, 11:05 p.m. | Public: True | GM: Manikin |
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Silver: 1000000 Economic Resources: 41000 Social Resources: 1300 |
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Action by Jaenelle
Ellani has been weaving webs her entire life, and has become quite good at it. The larger than average sized spider, since moving into the Velenosa estate, has created hundreds of thousands of delicate strands of silk which is usually cleaned weekly and removed from the entire rooms she decorates with her beautiful and intricate designs. It seems like a complete waste of art.
Empowered by the spidersilk baby blanket her son owns, knowing full well the silk can be used to make a strong yet rare material, Jaenelle has sought out to see that the webbing is put to use instead of destroyed. She gets aide in her project from House Tessere, hoping to use their experience in creating a new cloth so that House Velenosa might be known for such themselves. Tailors to work with the threads, apothecaries to assist in making sure they withstand the weaving process, and merchants to see that the resource is spoken about and interest is gathered. House Acheron is tapped due to their experience with spiders, and those of the peerage who have offered aide are welcomed without question to see that this cloth becomes a thing and not just an idea on paper.
Jaenelle promised Ellani that she would show her the beauty the world has to offer, little did the spider know but it would be her who helps to create it.
Action by Berenice
Berenice once helped House Tessere in their establishment of cloth-of-neodymium, and she is /delighted/ to turn her skills to efforts of her own house. Berenice makes sure that everyone who is needed to convince to invest in this process and project are persuaded to do so: she is one of the foremost fashionistas of Arx, after all, and she will /ensure/ that the end result takes the city by storm. With that in mind, how could someone ever decline to be a part of it?
Action by Sabine(RIP)
The finest fabric artists in Arvum dwell in Iriscal and Sabine commits them all. /All/. 10,000 resources worth of all. They are accustomed to her demands to experiment with odd material and they work best under the pressure of the Marquessa's chill, expectant gaze, bringing with them centuries of technique, innovation, and more than a little professional pride, to figure out how to turn spider silk into cloth.
And not one of them, from Sabine down to the most green apprentice, makes any bones about their intentions of taking what they learn from this little experiment back to Iriscal to craft their /own/ unnaturally strong material down the road. This is the test run.
Action by Brianna
Brianna is using her exceptional skills of organization and delegation to help with the administrative side of these efforts. When there's pretty dresses involved, she is highly motivated.
Action by Tesha
Lady Tesha Telmar would like to assist in this wonderful venture of spider silk as she has a fondness for them in general, along with most other animals. She is going to use her skills with Propaganda in spreading the properties of spider silk and how wonderous it is and hoping that it becomes a hit.
Action by Mabelle(RIP)
Mabelle is thrilled to finally practice her alchemical skills on anything other than perfumes and .. perfumes. She intends to test the fabric and assures its durability as well as be one of the models to showcase it around the city once it's finally woven.
Action by Mailys
Mailys might be a merchant, but it's her skill with textiles that she's bringing to this table. She'll get right into the process, helping with spinning silk, weaving, all of it. She wants to know how it feels in her hands, against her skin. She wants to be able to guide the process, if some technique might be better than the one currently being used.
Action by Apollo
Apollo could try to apply some novel tanning techniques to some samples of the spider silk produced, just to see if anything changes the properties of the material in interesting or useful ways. But no. He knows that the stuff is going to be in short supply, produced by - apparently - a single spider. His valuable expertise, here, is in understanding how materials with a limited and variable supply can be managed so they reach market smoothly and don't vary wildly in perceived value. He'll study the output and the various factors that go into the production of the spider silk, and determine where there are bottlenecks, places where a likely point of failure would stop production entirely or slow it greatly, and decide in what ways supply should be stored and released to market in order to maximize its value.
Action by Alexio
Alexio Donatti is a handsome, cunning, and charming man; the merchants know it, both the men and ladies know it, everybody knows it! He also has an uncanny way with words to get people to _do_ what //he// wants them to think //they// want to do. It's incredible, really! This time it is no exception. Once the textile creation is finalized, he begins his work. He makes sure to spread the news vis-a-vis spider-silk a stone's throw away and off the beaten track. News begin to spread thin and wide about the wonderful properties of the strong and rare textile; and, once you get the people's tongue rolling, well...it is very hard to get them to stop. Isn't it? At least that's the hope!
Action by Josephine(RIP)
The crafters guild is a powerful guild. Most just never realize it. But Josephine on behalf of the crafters guild has listened to Jaenelle's proposition and is prepared to throw the might of the guild's bank and it's people behind her and Tessere. A good portion of the guild's coffers are emptied, contracts are called in and the crafters of Arx band together. 500,000 silver from the guilds coffers are put forther, 250,000 from Josephine's own personal funds as well. 20,000 economic resources, some of it gathered by it's members, or procured specifically for this project are laid out. And they turn out in numbers to assist. Whether it's the skilled hands of weavers, market specialists who can gather the supplemental materials to make this new fabric and in the amount necessary to ensure no hitch in supplies that might hinder experimentation. Josephine reaches out to the other crafters guilds across the compact to inquire of anyone of their numbers who are willing to travel to the city and lend their expertise or brainstorming to make the Archduchess regent's vision come true and Elloni's silks something to behold and marvel. This is the Crafters Guild and she will show the city and compact that the guild remains as ever, -the- guild, and instrumental in this process.
Action by Nurie
Nurie has always been focused on spinning her sister's dreams into something tangible, the creation of Tessere's brocade being one pinnacle of such a thing. It's lit a fire within the baseborn tailor to continue on with research and further creativity. The use of spider's silk as a completely new kind of material to incorporate stokes her imagination and excitement (and of course what Sabine wants Sabine gets as far as her aid), and as part of the Tessere delegation she lends her expertise and skill directly in its creation, investing a great deal of her personal time to work with and provide feedback to the team of artisans.
Result
Spider silk cloth is the dream of a certain sort of tailor with a romantic bent and a level of ambition that lesser men and women might call ‘unrealistic’. But Jaenelle is able to gather together people who are determined to make it happen, and who are willing to invest heavily and wager that it can be, will be done. First, they gather the discarded webs made by Ellani, and attempt to spin it into thread. If only it were that easy! Sadly, the old webs are unsuitable and shred to pieces. Ellani - after much persuasion and treats of her favorite insects for days - agrees to hold still and allow Jaenelle to draw out a little bit of fresh silk from her spinnerets. The fresh silk has the strength and flexibility they need, but it’s clear that one spider could never produce enough for cloth. Also, Ellani makes it clear she has better things to do with her time.
Back to the drawing board. The investments by Josephine and Sabine go into buying a warehouse - a very well sealed warehouse - and doing some experiments. With spiders. Big spiders, little spiders, angry spiders (they’re all angry spiders). Mabelle and Nurie work together, with Tesha serving as main spider wrangler, to develop a sort of...spider spinning harness. Lock the spider in at one end, and someone can sit at the other and slowly draw the silk out into a spool. It takes hours every day. It takes thousands of spiders.The spiders bite their handlers, they eat each other, many escape or die, and the warehouse has to be stocked with every fly, beetle, and other bug the local urchins can provide, making for an awkward working environment. Brianna’s meticulous notes help them discover which breeds of spiders have the best silk-to-horrible-arachnid-behavior ratio, and it’s only Alexio’s charm and Josephine’s authority that can keep people from quitting when they realize they’ve been hired to spin silk out of spider butts. Ellani seems interested in the process, in her way, but shows little sympathy for the servitude of her fellows; it’s a spider-eat-spider world.
Eventually, the spiders die, since spider breeding is not, yet, an Arvani branch of animal husbandry. But through blood, sweat, tears, and hundreds of spider bites, the experimenters have enough spools of thread to work with. Mabelle and Apollo brainstorm ways to ensure that the precious, limited thread can be maximized for production. Working together with Mailys and Nurie’s textile expertise, the thread is woven into a single, precious supply of spidersilk cloth, with not even an inch wasted. It feels like cool air on the skin, it’s surprisingly strong, and it takes dyes beautifully. Some varieties of spider even seem to naturally produce lightly colored silk, and now they have documentation about which ones. Without some other breakthrough, this is never going to be a sustainable industry, but for this moment, they have enough cloth to create a few precious outfits. More, thanks to the skillful promotion of Berenice, Tesha, and Alexio, the city realizes that it is these people, and the incomparable House Velenosa, which has done the impossible: spidersilk cloth.
50 portions have been given to Jaenelle - this is not a mass production process, so you'll need to do further actions to gain more, or refine the process. You also each get a clue proving that you know how to make spidersilk the hard way!