Because the game is stalling, I'm going to go ahead and advance the timeline.  :-)<br/><br/>I think the problem we've run into is that the group is busy consolidating their holdings instead of going off exploring, which puts everyone off balance.  In the future, I'll have to figure out how to encourage and reward exploration.  For now, I'm simply giving out some xp at a reduced rate and running the next phase of the adventure.