The Jarl of Winterhold

Dying wasn't his proudest moment

Ben had been involved in a car crash after a large party and lots of drinking. However his biggest mistake was getting into that car.

A car where his friend tried opening a large bad of "flour" whilst he was speeding over the speedbumps.

Whilst the flour was flying and blocked his vision all he heard was a loud truck horn and a blinding light.

He had no meetings with gods or any other lucky encounter he simply woke up in the body of korir the jarl of winterhold one week ago right after the crash and right after this body's father's death.

He had been made the jarl of winterhold immediately, so he spent the last week looking over the reports of his new hold and he finally knew how screwed he truly was.

His hold had no large farms, or any type of business left, there wasn't even any villages only the capital was left. The entire hold was mostly abandoned and any people who still lived here were relying on his family's money to survive. His father had previously given odd jobs to the people of winterhold such as hunting and helping with the upkeep of his keep to help them earn a living.

The only actual business still left was the tavern and the only income of tax he actually had.

The only mine that didn't flood or collapse during the great collapse was almost dry so that source of income was almost cut-off.

The only relief about this situation he still had was that it was still 20 years until the start of the story.

And only 20 years until the dragons come back.

20 years until the civil war that will almost devastate Skyrim and its people.

Whilst the civil war wont be as bad in winterhold that is only because most of its already destroyed and there is simply not enough money in the coffers to survive more than 19 years and by his calculations with the tax he usually gets from the tavern he believes that the only way the original korir survived was by joining the stormcloaks and getting support from ulfric.

His court consisted of the only 3 families still in the hold, he had no court mage because most of them preferred to stay in the shiny whit tower just outside the capital city as it had way more money and was much comfier than the broken-down hold.

The only reason his family is still in power is that nobody wants the ruined and infertile lands where it is always snowing. Even the civil war has not started so everybody just ignores the hold of winterhold just as they had done for the past 80 years.

According to his fathers notes other jarls tried sending supplies after the great collapse however most surviving people moved away so it was no longer necessary, and we were abandoned.

I don't even blame the people if the storm happened once risks are that it will happen again however I knew that at least for the next 20 years such storms will not show up.

He tried looking for ways to fix this hold to even add a little industry into it however all of the infrastructure or any source of income is always quickly destroyed or stolen by bandits who he believed were sent by other jarls to keep the hold down. He knew that the only way for the hold to truly rise all industry had to be kept hidden from other holds or any bandit spies.

Over the past week he had even looked into becoming a mage however the only place in skyrim to become a mage was the college of winterhold however apparently around 10 years before the great collapse one of his ancestors had signed an agreement that no jarl of winterhold could become a member of the college to prevent the college from influencing the hold.

This is where he believed the rumour of the college causing the great collapse came from. It cam from the inability of the jarls to learn any secret of the college, even what the colleges main members believe the collapse came from.

Even ben believed that agreement came from the college trying to keep its secrets. The only good thing of that agreement was that the college was not allowed to interfere in any of the holds business. That meant that they could not spy on him or attempt to wrestle control of the hold.

So for the next 20 years, at least until the dragons woke up, he will be able to run his hold himself even if he cant improve it he had to at least try. Not even the empire cared what he did with his hold as long as he did not call himself the new emperor and rebelled. Not that he could with his financial situation.

Today was supposed to be his first meeting of his court however only one of the 3 families showed up. At least the guar captain showed up all the way from the mine. His only duty was to guard the mine as he was the most experienced soldier the hold had.

All the information obtained in the meeting was that the mine was still running dry and that some more animals were migrating from the hold. Not that he could stop any of these unless he had a way to find a new mine. Which he did not, even the locations of the old mines from before the collapse were lost.

As he was dismissing his court, he heard a sound and saw a transparent screen appear. A screen that made him verry happy as it finally meant he had a way to survive the frozen wasteland that had become of winterhold.

[system Loading … 1%…2%...4%...90%...100%]

[Kingdom Building system downloaded]

Finally, he had a way to survive.

Finally he had a way to thrive.