Chapter 6: Main Quest 1
The Five Great Cities of Westeros are King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, Gulltown, and White Harbor. These are the five port cities that directly provide taxes to the Iron Throne and are the most densely populated areas of Westeros.
Whenever a tournament is held in these cities, knights and sellswords flock from far and wide, including many of the greatest nobles.
A joust is the quintessential aristocratic competition. Anyone who can win a joust in any of these cities—even the second-smallest Gulltown (White Harbor, the smallest, is in the North and doesn't have a jousting tradition)—must be among the most accomplished (and wealthy) knights in the realm.
To be blunt, is a player just starting out even qualified to participate in such a formal joust?
Never mind whether one's skill level meets the requirements—the armor and horses required for jousting alone are beyond the reach of hedge knights.
Typically, the plate armor used in competitions is over four millimeters thick, and its price is far higher than actual combat plate, which is only a little over two millimeters thick. The horses used in competitions are top-notch, well-bred destriers, often costing several times more than ordinary warhorses.
And what does a hedge knight have? A suit of old chainmail and an ordinary trained horse.
Of course, those with skill and courage could sign up to compete, but Ian didn't think he was that reckless.
He'd envisioned participating in some minor melee tournaments held at lesser noble castles or market towns.
"So what does this 'change' option mean?" Ian wondered aloud.
"We've designed at least three quest lines for each class. Players can choose which one to complete after reviewing all options. Once accepted, it can't be changed."
Hearing this, Ian clicked on the change option, silently praying that the next quest would be more reasonable.
[Main Quest 1: The Road of the Bandit.
Quest Description: People often say that hedge knights and bandit knights are two sides of the same coin. Even if you've never been a bandit, you're still tainted by the reputation of your peers. Perhaps, then, abandoning that meaningless honor would be a better choice?
Quest Objective: Raid the castle or manor of a wealthy knight, and plunder a cumulative total of over 100 gold dragons.
Quest Reward: 5 points, 3 attribute points, 3 skill points]
[Accept] [Change]
"Raid a wealthy knight's castle? And plunder over 100 gold dragons?" Ian sighed, his face falling completely.
He felt a wave of despair wash over him.
Take the castle of the poorest knight, for example. To raid such a castle, Ian would have to face at least one knight and one squire.
While victory wasn't impossible in this scenario, the loot from a knight's holdfast (let's be generous and call it a castle) so poor it couldn't even afford a single man-at-arms would likely be worth less than the knight's armor and horse combined.
To loot 100 gold dragons, Ian couldn't imagine the sheer amount of work it would take.
What did 100 gold dragons even mean?
In the books, after King Joffrey was poisoned at the Purple Wedding, Ser Addam Marbrand offered a bounty on Sansa Stark, suspected of conspiring with Tyrion to commit regicide. The bounty was exactly that much—100 gold dragons!
For comparison, a top-tier knight's outfit: a full set of high-quality plate armor, a fine longsword and mace, a destrier, and two riding horses would only cost around 30 gold dragons.
But in Westeros, only the wealthy knights of the Reach, with their manors and extensive lands, or those in the Westerlands with gold mines, could afford such equipment. Even for them, it would be a significant expense.
Elsewhere, wealthy knights in the Vale mostly wore half-plate, those in the Stormlands wore three-quarter plate, and those in the Riverlands simply used chainmail as their primary armor, just as they had for generations.
So, this quest was actually designed to encourage player-killing, right? Ian suddenly thought absurdly that he only needed to hunt down six hedge knights and strip them of their equipment to complete the mission.
Forcing himself to calm down, Ian clicked [Change] with his last hope.
[Main Quest 1: The Golden Road.
Quest Description: The first time you raised your sword for coin instead of justice or a title, you suddenly realized the truth of this world: gold is the only true god, and everything else is illusion.
Quest Objective: Earn 1,000 gold dragons.
Quest Reward: 5 points, 3 attribute points, 3 skill points]
[Accept] [Change]
"..." Ian felt completely numb.
100 gold dragons was already an outrageous number, and this time it became 1,000. Although there were no restrictions on how to earn these 1,000 gold dragons, it was still 1,000 gold dragons!
During the War of the Five Kings, Catelyn Tully secretly released Jaime, who had been captured by Robb's forces, and demanded that he return her two daughters upon reaching King's Landing. This action undoubtedly put the coalition forces of the North and the Riverlands in a very difficult position.
Under these circumstances, Lord Edmure Tully, Lord of Riverrun, issued a warrant for Jaime, offering a bounty of 1,000 gold dragons (the highest bounty ever offered in the series).
At the time, Jaime was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, one of the most formidable knights in Westeros, heir to the Lannister family—the wealthiest family in Westeros—and the father of King Joffrey (well, technically). Yet, his bounty was only 1,000 gold dragons.
Perhaps many people, seeing Robert offer a 40,000 gold dragon prize to the champion of the Hand's Tourney in King's Landing, would consider gold dragons trivial.
However, the first book in the series was published back in 1996, and a common view among fans is that this was an error caused by Martin's initial worldbuilding inconsistencies.
In fact, after Robert's death, Littlefinger approached Eddard Stark and mentioned 6,000 gold dragons as a bribe for the entire City Watch—a figure Eddard considered reasonable.
In other words, 1,000 gold dragons is equivalent to bribing one-sixth of King's Landing's entire garrison.
Forcing early-game players to earn this much money from scratch is basically impossible.
Suddenly, Ian had a very disturbing thought. The developers designed several impossible quests like this. Could it be that they don't even expect us to complete them?
Note: The currency exchange rate in the world of Ice and Fire is: 1 gold dragon = 30 silver moons = 210 silver stags, 1 silver stag = 49 copper stars, and 1 copper star = 8 copper pennies.
In addition, based on certain data, this story estimates that a gold dragon is a medium-sized gold coin weighing approximately 7.56 grams.
Important: This data is only used as a setting for this story (!!!), to serve the subsequent plot, and is not intended to verify the original work or real-world economics, so please don't overthink it (and don't use current gold prices to estimate purchasing power).
(End of Chapter)
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