Village Elders can be found in every village where they are able to provide several services for the player. Village Elders are similar to Guild Masters in their role as they generally oversee the village community and deal with outsiders.
Although any villager can tell you where the Village Elder is through conversation, they do not give the exact location and it is up to you to locate them. Just look around for someone standing still who will be the Village Elder (or use the village menu option directly).
You can speak with the Village Elder concerning several topics:
- Ask if you can help with any tasks
- Request to buy supplies or cattle
- Inquire about enemies in the area
- Recruit peasants
- If an ally lord is imprisoned nearby, request that they start a fire as a distraction which will cost a you a couple hundred denars to convince the Village Elder to do.
If you own the village, you are given 2 special options:
- Train him, which will result in the player staying in the village for some time (like training villagers). The steward will improve his skills, resulting in cheaper and faster constructions and the player will gain relation points with the village.
- Buy a new building, the options depend on the level of the steward and the buildings that have been built already (some unlocks others). The price and time taken for each building depends on the engineering skill of the elder.
Village Elder Quests[]
You can receive quests by asking the Village Elder if he has any tasks for you. These quests are quite useful--although completing the quests won't give you any reward in denars, they will improve your relation with the village. A population that likes you more is more likely to give you both more and better trained recruits. This is especially useful when the player is a Lord or King as they can recruit dozens of recruits or higher trained troops from a single village in times of war, replenishing their army much quicker. Additionally, if you own the fief, these quests raise the village's prosperity, which leads to higher tax income.
Quest types are:
- Find Cattle: You'll have to buy or steal a certain number of cattle and bring them to the village. A simple and straight forward quest for all players.
- The player receives 3 reputation and up to 5 for turning in the quest making it worth a total of 8 reputation.
- Deliver Grain: You'll have to deliver some amount of grain to the elder.
- Accepting the quest yields 5? reputation with the village. Delivering the grain can yield up to 5 reputation for the village.
- Train Peasants : You will be asked to train a militia to defend the village against bandits. This quest gives a new option at the town menu called "Train Peasants". The player will be required to train a certain number of peasants to complete the quest.
- The time required to train each peasant is dependent on the player's trainer skill. Once finished, the player will have to fight the number of peasants he/she trained, sometimes numbering up to 4 at once. If the player beats them, they are trained, if the player is beaten, none of them are trained. This may prove difficult as the village may have little space to manoeuvre, all have no armour, and only a wooden staff with which to fight.
- After training the required number of peasants, the player will be forced to fight bandits in a manner similar to a bandit infestation.
- After killing the bandits, the player will be be prompted with a dialogue option to accept a reward which yields select items that the village would sell, or the player can refuse the rewards yielding bonus reputation and honor.
- If the player fails to kill the bandits, the bandits will the burn the village to the ground changing it into a looted village.
- If the player refuses the reward, this quest will reward 7 (seven) reputation with the village.
- Escort Villagers to Town: The Elder asks you to escort some villagers to a certain town to trade. Despite its name, you don't actually need to escort them, as they travel by themselves. You complete this quest if the villagers arrive at their destination, regardless if you actually escorted them or not.
- Accepting this quest yields 1 reputation with the town, turning it in yields another 4 bringing it to a total of 5 reputation. You also receive some free food, mostly bread.
- Help peasant: Within a village center, talking to random villagers will sometimes yield an unemployed one who asks you for 300 denars to help, especially if the village is poor. Paying the 300 denars will raise your reputation by 1.
- Rescue the Elder's daughter: Sometimes, during times of war the daughter of the village elder is kidnapped by a lord of another faction. The elder begs you to bring her back unspoiled. If you talk to the lord you can either ransom her or try to persuade him to give her back (a failed persuasion will raise the ransom for a small amount). Bring her back to increase your reputation by 7 and receive a named cow.
Also, in taverns you can occasionally find villagers who ask for your help in freeing their village as it has become infested with bandits.