The Will of Gaiden Westmyr

What the Will Actually Said

Westgaiden's founder left two-thirds of his personal estate, which by every account was considerable, into a standing trust with a single, binding purpose: paying the Westgaiden Militia in perpetuity. Not for a decade. Not for as long as funds reasonably lasted. In perpetuity, exactly as written, in a hand that doesn't waver anywhere in the document despite the size of the promise being made.
  The remaining third went to his surviving family, who by all surviving correspondence did not contest the split, which tells you something about the kind of man Gaiden Westmyr was to the people who knew him best.

Why It Changed Everything

Before the will, Westgaiden's defense depended on Gaiden's personal wealth and personal attention, both of which are, unavoidably, mortal resources. Militias funded by one man's fortune tend to dissolve the moment that man does.
  The will made the Militia permanent in a way founders rarely manage. It meant Westgaiden's defense no longer required Gaiden Westmyr to keep breathing, which is precisely the kind of foresight that let the United Charter hold the settlement together for over fifty years afterward.
  I've read a great many wills in this line of work. Most rearrange furniture, so to speak... who gets the house, who gets the debts. Gaiden Westmyr's rearranged the actual survival odds of an entire settlement, from beyond his own death, using nothing but ink and a decision most wealthy men are too afraid of their own mortality to make honestly.
  I keep a copied page of it framed in my study, not the original, which stays properly archived where it belongs. I look at it on the days I need reminding that a single document, written carefully enough, can outlive absolutely everyone who signed it and still be doing its job.
  Westgaiden itself is gone now, its Charter destroyed along with it, which some might call the will's ultimate failure. I don't see it that way. Fifty years of a settlement staying whole, funded entirely by one dead man's stubborn generosity, strikes me as a considerable success by any honest measure. Nothing lasts forever. That was never actually the promise being made.