I needed a time filler - something to play with when I wasn't feeling at my best :) This is what happened …

Plan for a Thistle Hamlet.

• The Lodging House is just 3 sets of lodgings, which gives us 15 double rooms, that can be used by Villagers. Hopefully we can get someone to invest in that and build it for us. They keep the profits, we take a small tax. I would suggest we recruit Hunter/Forager/Trapper types. Perhaps a couple of fisher folk to work shore nets and collect from rock pools. Others act as staff for the Inn, servants at the keep, make Baskets at home etc.
• The Inn, has rooms for 10 people, and can accommodate more (lets say up to another ten) on the Common Room Floor (That's in the poor standard of living). Again, we might be able to get investors for that, letting them keep the bulk of the profit, but charging a small tax to help support the Local guard unit.
• Work huts - 3x double huts used as Workshops/stations. I suggest: Leather (it includes turning skins into leather, as well as making leather items; Herbalist (just the workshop, rather than the gardens or other bits that come with it) where plants collected from the forest are processed; a shop that could form the basis for Able's small merchant business. The woodsy people from the Lodgings make their money collecting hunting, foraging and collecting herbs for the herbalist (Using the Mobile Business rules) - food goes to the inn, skins and herbs get processed …

Plan for the Thistle Keep (Ground).

Much as before. We have done the base build, and just need to follow it through. The main change is extending the bunk room ?and adding an armoury?. We get 5x civilian guards when the Museum is completed, and should easily be able to hire/fund 5x Military guards when everything in the 'Hamlet' is up and running, as well as pay Velma and Sir Robin (although he should get a small income from the shrine, as well). We might not even need all of that income to fund them.

TBH, we don't need the armoury, if we only employ 5x military guards. It is cheaper to buy light gear for them (if we are careful) than pay for stocking the armoury. In which case, we just pay for a store room, and use it to keep the weapons in :) Then claim a discount for the upgrade, if we choose to stock it as a full armoury later.

Plan for the Thistle Keep (Basement).

We have rooms for all the principal staff, and rooms downstairs for party members. There is a Goblin, and the guy we rescued from the 'asylum' - but sleeping on the Common room floor, on in an empty store room (Etc) is a valid option. There are plenty of empty rooms we could repurpose. We have a big discount agreed with Artifex for upgrading some to accommodation, which adds small rooms for 10x people.

The plan, to the right, gives us a double 'guest' room, a 10×10 room for a senior employee, and seven smaller rooms suitable for junior employees.

Overall

That should give us a working Hamlet, with scope to expand later, if we want to.