[Game-Adjacent] The Unified Lore-Dump Thread

Pendragon: Tales of Chivalry and Sorcery is the place to go if you want to play Pendragon. Cpt._Funkotron will be your GM, with assistance from CarrieVS.

[Game-Adjacent] The Unified Lore-Dump Thread

Postby Cpt._Funkotron » Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:16 am

I have decided to compile my Lore Dumps from the OOC thread into their own topic for convenient access. To keep this thread from becoming cluttered, please do not reply to this, if you have questions regarding the information here, please post them in the OOC thread, PM me, or catch me on IRC.



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I Shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the Deputy

The King is the originator of all land, in marxist terms, he controls the ultimate means of production. He owns the rocks, the trees, the fields, the birds, the deer, the swans, the rivers, the valleys, "everything the light touches" in theory belongs to him, and even quite a lot that the light doesn't touch. He divides his realm into counties, or shires. Over each Shire presides a Shire Reeve, or Sheriff. He represents the king's interests, collects the king's taxes, carries out the king's laws, and keeps the kings peace. Logres is divided into 24 shires.

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Now, as the king sees it, in a perfect world that would be the end of the story, but it isn't. In come the Barons to make a mess of everything.

Much like you as knights receive your manorial estates in exchange for your knightly services, so a baron is granted lands in exchange for raising and maintaining a ready contingent of knights, should the king have need of them. When enfoeffment is entered into, the requisite knights in the agreement are usually dealt with in terms of eschiiles, squadrons of 10. Practically speaking, if a baron showed up to battle with at least 5 knights to the eschille, there wouldn't ordinarily be a fuss. Any vassal who (agrees to) provides less than an eschille does not hold their land per baroniam, but as a knight, per militem.

There are are around 60 or so warlords who hold lands in vassalage from Uther in 485, and easily a few hundred direct vassal knights and minor estate holders. An accurate political map of these baron's holdings isn't really possible unless I made a week out of it, because Barons don't tend to hold all of their land in one single, contiguous, area. Oh, no siree. One castle in the east, two in the west. Ten manors in Berroc, half a manor and a sickly cow in Ascalon. Fishing rights in Glevum, Hunting rights in Lonazep, and toll rights over a half-rotten bridge in Silchester.

The complexity of this arrangement is thus that it took the game designers a 200 page supplemental (called Book of the Warlord) to adequately outline it all and give a rough list of who owns what.

Interspered between these fiefdoms, 25% of the land remains in the king's direct control, his royal demesne. There are no completely royal counties, there are no completely enfoeffed counties. It is all a scrambled mess of a kingdom, the deformed lovechild of a Rorschach test and a Jackson Pollack painting.

All barons are customarily of equal rank, peers under the same king, but there are also special baronial ranks held by the powerful few. In later times, there would be dozens of peerages and special conditions and honors for each, but at the moment, it boils down to the Earls and the Dukes.

My Name is Earl

An Earl in this setting is essentially, to keep things simple, a baron with lands in a given county, who along with their grant of land in that given county, is given ceremonial association with and permanent, inheritable, shirevalty (office of Sheriff) over that same county. This is a very rare honor, and it is usually only held by those barons who, though legally speaking hold the king's land, are the scions of family lines that have ruled in their regions since time immemorial. There are seven Earls: Sir Roderick of Salisbury (your liegelord), Sir Ulfius of Silchester (and Duke of Silchester), Sir Lucius of Caerwent (and Duke of Caercolun), Sir Corneus of Linden (and Duke of Lindsey), Sir Edairis of Rydychan (only recently elevated to the Earldom by the last king, Aurelius Ambrosius), Sir Sulien of Bedegraine (the cousin of the now deceased and defunct King of Bedegraine, conquered a decade ago) and King Cadwy of Summerland (a man in a unique position, allowed to retain his Kingly titles after having sworn fealty to Uther).

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An earl does not own all of the land in a county, no one does. The Earl of Rydychan for example holds barely a fifth of Rydychan county himself, whereas Sir Roderick is notable for holding aroubnd 75% of the county of Salisbury ("wow!").

Think of the earl as a man, who by ancestral right, stands as an extension of the king's outstretched hand to certain shire, and the hand of that shire outstretched to the king at the same time.

Then you have the Dukes, an extension of the King's mailled fist wherever the king has need of one (almost always those troublesome border counties).

Pass the Duchy on the Left-Hand Side

In this setting, a duke is not more wealthy or prestigious than an earl, in fact in many cases it is the reverse. The word comes from the latin 'dux', or military leader. A duke, again to keep things simple, is a baron who is granted military command over the other barons in a given region (dukedom) for the purpose of regional defense. The title is NOT inheritable, and can be revoked or dissolved at any time the king pleases. Along with the Dukedom, the king typically gives temporary ownership of the royal lands inside that area for the duration of the duke's life, to be returned to the crown upon his death.

The duke has no extraordinary powers in his dukedom unless specifically granted to him. All barons owe military service to the king, it is the duke's charge to direct that service at his own initiative in the king's name.

There are five Dukes in 485:

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1. Sir Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and Sheriff of Tintagel. Known for having a remarkably beautiful wife, Igraine. He wards the west country from Irish raiders, and the pernicious breton King, Idres, who rules the south half of Cornwall and the north half of Brittany.
2. Sir Corneus, Duke of Lindsey, and Earl of Linden (modern lincolnshire). He wards the north from the wild picts.
3. Sir Eliol, Duke of Glevum. An old man, a revered warrior and commander of men. He wards the Severn valley from Estregales, a warlike Irish kingdom in the south of Cambira.
4. Sir Lucius, Duke of Caercolun, and Earl of Caerwent. He wards the eastern shore from the Angle and Saxon naval expeditions. Given that this region is now known as "east anglia", I'll leave you to be the judge of his effectiveness.
5. Sir Ulfius, Duke of Silchester, and Earl of Silchester. King Uther's friend and right-hand man, showered in royal lands and liberties and entrusted with many crucial military operations. His niece, Lady Ellen, is Earl Roderick of Salisbury's wife. Ulfius's position is critical: he wards the south from Sussex and Kent, the wicked saxon kingdoms established under the reign of Vortigern.

As you can see, there are 3 earls of 7 who are also dukes, and 2 dukes of 5 who are not earls in their own right. The relationship between the two offices is not linear.[/quote]

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Army Organization

As I'm preparing for the first adventure, I am reminded that there is a battle for the players in the first year, so I figured there was no time like the present to brush everyone up on how armies work in the Pendragon setting.

Part of the following has been taken other supplemental books, and part of it has been house-ruled in by yours truly. As before, much of this is likely to be outside of your general concern as a player, but it's here if you need it.

Squires and Attendants

The largest divergence here from the supplemental books I'm drawing from, is that I'm trying out is 2 squires (or attendant commoners) per knight instead of 1, as a general rule, not an exception. Further down, when I make reference to "Valets" and "Armigers", know that I am just referring to squires (or attendant commoners) doing different jobs.

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"Do as I say" phase: A Valet is usually young, starting at age 14, and usually transitions into the job of Armiger between the age of 18-21, though this transition is not automatic and may never come to pass at all. There are exceptions to this, in fact it's not impossible to retain this job well into one's middle age, not all squires become knights after all. A valet (it's a hard 'T', pronounced as they do on downton abbey, val-it) does most of the menial work that a knight requires: cooking meals on campaign, polishing armor, cleaning weapons, saddling and tending to horses, helping the knight don his armor, etc. While not on campaign, and while not occupied with chores, if the Valet is also a Squire he will spend most of his time learning to ride and fight from horseback in a relatively safe environment. In battle, the valet usually waits back in camp, keeping an eye on the (several) horses and baggage, waiting to either attend their master as they return victoriously, or prepare to beat a hasty retreat should things go south.

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"Do as I do" phase: An Armiger usually begins as a relatively young adult, at least 18 years old. As he name might suggest, he functions in part as an arms-bearer, in addition to helping the valet out with any chores that need doing. He follows the knight into battle on a rouncy, wearing a padded arming coat and hardened leather over-top, with an iron helm, a shield, his own sword, and any of the knight's weapons that he isn't using at that particular moment, most importantly spare lances. Most of the fighting is done by the knights (who ride in front) but when the unit is tearing into a block of infrantry and hacking indiscriminately, or the unit becomes flanked, or the line falters, the Armiger does earn his keep fighting like everyone else. It's also the armiger's job to pull the knight from the field if he is incapacitated, though with ransom-taking being so popular, the knight being rescued is not a guaranteed outcome. You lot start the campaign as this kind of squire.

An Ordinary Knight will typically have 1 attendant of each kind. Vassal knights (you lot) can expect at least 1 of their attendants to be an actual squire training for knighthood, perhaps even both. A HouseHold Knight, or Knight Bachelor, will usually be attended by low-born servants; being given charge of another knight's son is a great honor for a household knight, whereas it is expected of a landed knight.

A Rich knight may have even more attendants, though usually no more than 2 armigers.

An exceptionally poor (or stingy, or distrusted) knight will usually only have a valet with him, carrying what few of his own weapons he has with him out of necessity.

The Lance

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A Lance (the capital L is important), in military terms, does not describe a stick with a piece of metal on the end. A Lance is the smallest unit by which feudal armies are assembled and Organized; in simplest terms, a Lance is comprised of 1 knight and those he brings with him to battle. This will invariably include the knight's valet, and in most cases an armiger, as well as any small number of accompanying non-knightly soldiers. The use of the term Lance is informal and colloquial, and yet is the word that is most often used. You can think of a WWI general ordering "get me a few rifles up on that hill" impersonally referring to soldiers, in the middle ages they used 'lance' much in the same way.

The composition of a Lance in the Kingdom of Logres varies wildly from baron to baron, and to some degree from knight to knight. The requirements that Uther places on his vassals are intentionally vague; record keeping and land surveying, pardon my french, suck donkey balls in this period. Evaluation of feudal grants is practiced, but it is an extremely inexact discipline. The implicit understanding is that a vassal will bring as large a force as he is reasonably able, but at the same time, a liegelord calling bullshit on what looks like a poor effort is rarely feasible. As with most things among nobles, it is essentially run off of the honor system.

In Logres, the smallest possible Lance, the basic requirement for one's liegelord to be unable to bitch and moan, the C- grade effort if you will, is 4 people, 3 of which are fighting men: 1 knight + 2 spearmen, +1 valet waiting with the baggage.

However, this is the minimum. Most knights also have an armiger and can afford a few more spearmen, rich knights can usually afford even more squires and spearmen, and usually bring along a few mounted mercenaries (called Sargeants here) as well.

The ideal Lance, which as luck would have it (because I'm God in this game after all) is also what Earl Roderick requires from his knights, has 7 people, 6 of which are fighters (or 5, or 5.5 depending on how you count the armiger), 1 knight + 1 Armiger + 4 Spearmen + 1 Valet.

Because of these disparities, when a Lord calls his vassal to bring a Lance to battle, anywhere between 3-12 fighting men could be what shows up. The only real common thread between all lances is that they all contain a knight. Since Knight is the name of the game, the BAMF movers and shakers of war (at least as the legends describe them), this usually isn't too much of an issue.

In the years to come, wars will go farther abroad than lazy barons are accustomed, and lances of mercenaries will rule the field, hired and dismissed on an individual basis. Large bands of mercenaries are referred to as "Free Companies", and an individual mounted and well-armored mercenary with his own valet will be known as a "free lances", the origin of the word freelancer.

The Eschille

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Now, the battlefield isn't just a bunch of roaming knights getting into personal scraps with their haggard and breathless foot soldiers jogging behind them, much like any kind of soldier the knight (and by extension the Lance) is grouped into a squadron called an Eschille. The name is derived from an older form of the french word Echelle, which means ladder. This might seem a little nonsensical at first, but it sort of makes sense when you think of a Lance being a literal lance, and think of the lances coming together parallel to form the rungs of a ladder.

An Eschille is comprised of anywhere between 5 and 15 Lances, with 10 being ordinary.

You may notice that an ordinary eschille comprised of ordinary lances comes out to 60 fighting men, the same of a typical roman century. This isn't an accident.

Although the knight supplies the other men of his Lance, HE DOES NOT COMMAND THEM IN BATTLE IF HE IS NOT THE LEADER OF THE ESCHILLE. Sorry for shouting, but in this massive wall of text, if there's one thing that needs to stick out it's that. The knights and assorted cavalry are all lined up, with the best armored and the best horsed in front rank, and the lesser armed men in the second rank. Behind the cavalry, the spearmen are formed up into a single formation, commanded usually by 1 officer in 20. How these two formations work in conjunction during battle is not really well known to historians, and is not delt with in any capacity in the rule books so I'm unfortunately in the dark ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

A Knight who suplies his own Eschille, is a Banneret. Sir Elad is one of these knights, he supplies 7 lances including his own to the earl, and likewise leads this unit in battle under his own banner, hence the term.

The commander of an eschille who is not a banneret is usually just called "commander", but in some contexts the title 'decurion' may be used, a holdover from the roman days.

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The knights of an eschille train together, maneuver together and fight together, as a cohesive unit under the same leader. The knights of an eschille, and even the more senior footmen, will know and recognize their peers on sight. Several of the knigts were probably squired together. Think of an Eschille in terms of a modern Platoon if it helps. When you are knighted, spoiler alert I suppose, you will all be incorporated into one of Roderick's eschilles.

The Eschille is the unit by which a baron's feudal contract is defined. Earl Roderick is not legally bound to supply 150 knights and 600 spearmen to King Uther, he is legally required to field 15 eschilles.

Just as with the Lance, because of the variability in an Eschille's size, the king really might be playing 'luck of the draw' when he summons one. This is compacted with the variability of the Lance, to the RIDICULOUS point where an eschille could comprise anywhere between 15 (5 lances of 3) and 120 (15 lances of 12) fighting men, but in most cases will number around 60 total.

No one who is known to be capable of supplying a full eschille of 60, or even more, makes a point of sending just 15 men unless he has an itching to climb right to the top on Uther's shit list.

Companies, Archers, Battalions, And So Forth

All of the eschilles supplied by a Baron are grouped together into a company, and lead by that Baron, or a Captain, who is also individually the leader of one of the company's eschilles.

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It's at the company level that Archers are usually hired. Archers are usually not brought along in a lance, nor are they components of an eschille. It is the Lord who, when going to war, hires a contingent of archers, usually either common farmers inbetween planting and harvest, paid an honest wage for a little seasonal work, or in many cases these men could be career soldiers, selling their bow-arms wherever they can be bought. In any case, archers tend to all be massed into one long block at the company level, blotting out the sun in one general area rather than picking out individual targets.

An army's companies are divided into rough battallions, of which there are usually 3: The vanguard, the center, and the rearguard. As the names would suggest, when traveling the van is in the front, and the rear is in back, but on the battlefield, they simply file out into the three sections right left and center. The commander of a battalion is is commissioned on a battle-by-battle basis, as a battallions is just a third of a given army rather than a fixed unit. Regardless of any ability, the battallion commanders are usually the three most senior nobles present, regardless of training or experience. A 20 year old earl takes precedence of command over a grizzled 50 year old baron.

So, in summary, the chain of command goes thus: Army > Battalion > Company > Eschille > Lance (you are here).

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This time...it's currency.

Alright so I'm going to make this one brief (EDIT: he lied). Carrie basically already has the 411, but this is for the benefit of my fellow yanks.

There are two main varieties of coinage currently in use. A silver coin called a 'denarius' (or penny), and a gold coin called a 'solidus' (or shilling). There are twelve denarii to the solidus, and twenty solidi to the Libra (or pound).

There is no 1 pound coin, it is a purely notional unit. A pound is a pound because it's equal in value to a pound-weight of silver, which is 240 denarii.

There is a list of prices for common items in the player handbook, in chapter 8.

Most ordinary life or the average person (ie peasants) does not involve much interaction with currency. Everyday village life runs, as it has for thousands of years, off a system of gifts, favors, and barters.

Goods and services that are less than a Denariius in value, like a mug of ale, a basket of eggs, a loaf of bread, etc. is, between members of a community, chalked up to "eh, don't worry about it". Even more substantive exchanges are often handled as payment-in-kind. "If you help thatch my roof on Saturday, there's a new shirt my wife made in it for you". The same system by which you are expected to buy someone pizza and beer if they help you move.

A Denarius can be though of as "the smallest amount of money someone would actually bother a friend, neighbor, or family member for if owed, if they didn't much like them or were on the ropes financially". In America in 2017, think of it as something of comparable value to $50 if it helps.

That is not to say that the denarius is the smallest denomination available. They can be (and quite often are) cut, with hammer and knife, into halves, called ha'pennies, and quarters, called farthings. These chips are usually used for transactions with strangers, such as paying tolls, or buying accommodation at an inn.

Such things are usually below the dignity of noblemen, which is convenient since they are notoriously terrible with money. It is considered fashionable for knights to pay for trivialities per Solidus, as an exhibition of wealth and status, often over-paying by ridiculous margins. It is unsurprising then, that knights are very often broke. At the very least, a frugal knight will pay by the whole denarius, rounded up from ha'pennies and farthings.

1 farthing
2 farthings = 1 haypenny
4 farthings = 2 haypennies = 1 denarius
48 farthings = 24 haypennies = 12 denarii = 1 solidus
960 farthings = 480 haypennies = 240 denarii = 20 solidi = 1 Libra

All you really need to know as a knight is that


12 denarii = 1 solidus
240 denarii = 20 solidi = 1 Libra

and that there is no such thing as a 1 libra coin.


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A few house-rules and alterations regarding the buying things and their uses, since we're in a town where things can be bought at the moment.


Armor
I am re-working the way armor is valued a tad bit. Don't worry, your chainmail will still give you the ordinary 10 points, I'm not a monster, but I am adjusting other armors.

Wool Padding: 3 points [£.05] (Thick full sleeved arming coat that hangs just above the knee, and an arming cap, both of thick, layered wool. Bread and butter of any soldier. If one is armored at all, one has at least this.)

Wool Padding + Hardened Leather [£.5]: 5 points (As above, but with a cuirass of boiled leather in some design over top, usually either shaped in the form of a muscled torso, or in a pattern of overlapping scales like lammellar. This is the armor of choice for most Spearmen and lighter cavalry.

Wool Padding + Chain Byrnie [£1]: 7 points (Cloth padding, with a chain shirt covering the torso, stopping at the upper arms and the mid hip, like a t-shirt. Armor of choice for elite saxons, sargeants and armored footmen.

Wool Padding + Chain Hauberk [£2]: 10 points (full-sleeved chain shirt that falls just below the knees, with aventail and coif protecting the head)

The Price of Horses
The Prices of horses at market are being nerfed. Good horses are supposed to be exceptionally expensive, but 20 Libra for a single animal is patently ludicrous. That puts a knight's warhorse as more costly than a knight's ransom for goodness sake.

The new pricerange for horses (the kinds that a noble would have any business purchasing for himself, anyway) are as follows:

Charger: £12 (from £20) - Big, fast, and bloody expensive, both to attain and to keep. Bred for battle, and little else. Ridden into the fray by any self-respecting landed knight, and the upper crust of landless ones.

Courser: £6 (from £10) - Not quite impressive as other warhorses, but a warhorse nonetheless, and quite fast to boot. Often ridden by the lesser household knights, or the higher grade of sargeants.

Palfrey: £4 (from £5) - A horse not suitable for war, but very suitable to riding. They are known for good maneuverability and gentle nature, and are thus the mount of choice to give as a gift to a lady, go hunting on, or simply travel in style upon.

Rouncey: £1 (same) - The all-rounder, a jack of all trades and master of none. It is pleasant enough to ride upon, large enough and intelligent enough to be trained for war, and relatively inexpensive. If a knight has any horses, he as at least one rouncey. They are often ridden by knights when not expecting trouble, as to not tire out and lessen the value of their primary warhorse. Ridden into battle by squires and the majority of sargeants.

Sumpter: £0.5 (from 100d) - A miscellaneous pack horse, used to carry items, provisions, and equipment.



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As promised, mercenaries:

One can hire soldiers by the month, by the season (roughly a 3 month period) or by the year. Any soldier will typically favor a steady long-term gig over a short one. A man hired for a season will likely expect to go on campaign, and thus have opportunity for plunder, and so will expect a smaller rate for his time. If he is hired on the year, he is likely to assume he will be part of a guard complement, the equivalent of a cushy desk job, and as a semi-permanent member of the lord's household requires an even smaller stipend relative to time served. In this way, it is possible to hire a relatively large force for a short campaign for less gold than one might think, but is vastly more cost effective to hire a smaller number long-term.

As part of your Lance, you already supply and retain 4 spearmen, (see the above post on army composition) who are already paid for automatically from your manor's base income. As an ordinary knight, your armiger fights similar to a higher-end hobilar. A rich knight's Armiger fights as a sargeant, and a superlative knight has two armigers who fight as sargeants.

Thank you carrie for the formatting help
TroopMonthSeasonYearDescription
Rogue1s2s5sPoorly equipped, lightly armoured (if at all), usually typical of bandits.
Spearman/Bowman2s5s10sBread and butter of Cymric armies. Cloth and leather armour, often kept as garrison.
Armoured Footman5s10s20s (=£1)A better equipped and usually more veteran form of the common spearmen, often used in the guard complements of wealthy lords.
Hobilar6s12s25sLight cavalry, usually atop a pony or perhaps a rouncey, often in cloth armour, with leather at most. Excellent for raids and skirmishes.
Sargeant10s20s40s (=£2)Armoured, trained, and equipped as heavy cavalry, but not a knight. Usually atop a rouncey or perhaps a courser, typically in a chain byrnie.
Household Knight (ordinary)20s (=£1)40s (=£2)80s (=£4) Armed and armoured much as any knight, though in most cases may only ride a courser rather than a full charger.



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The following is the history of the isle of Britain and the region of Salisbury, as your characters know it. They were likely tought these things by their parents and older relatives. Most of it, from our modern understanding, is bullshit. To your characters, it is the gospel truth. This was copy-pasted word for word from the campaign book, which explains the wony formatting which I cannot be assed to fix at the moment.

The first inhabitants here were the giants, long
before any people came here. Ancient earth beings —
faerie folk and their ilk — were always residents since
they are a part of nature.

When Brutus came to Britain, he and his legions
destroyed the giants and took the land. Salis was a
brave warrior in the Trojan army. When the island was
partitioned, Brutus gave Salis a vast area for his own.
While Brutus was busy building London, Salis went to
his land and killed the local giant here, and then threw
the bones to the giant’s own dogs.

Salis freed hundreds of slaves of the giant, and their
queen was named Sarum. She was the daughter of a great
queen who lived inside a hill up the Avon River — Silbury
Hill. Salis married Sarum, and the people built a
city to celebrate their marriage. Salis named it after his
wife, and it is still called Sarum to this day. She divided
the city into five parts, one each for the druids, the merchants,
the farmers, the visitors, and, in the center, the
nobles. Her younger son, the one who did not become
earl, built the walls that divide the city into quarters.

When Salis died, he was buried far outside the city
under a mound, and that is why the plains are called
Salisbury. His nobles adopted the same customs and
were also buried there, and the area became famous as
a burial ground for a long time. Out there now are still
thousands of tombs of all types, including the Royal
Graveyard of Stonehenge said to have been raised by
Merlin himself.

King Eburacus, who performed many great deeds,
later ruled Britain. (He lived a about the time of King
David’s rule in Judea.) His son Assaracus led eighteen
bands of Britons to the continent and conquered the
people there. They became powerful and included many
tribes who, collectively, called themselves the Belgae.

About the time of Romulus and Remus, when
Rome was founded, Britain was ruled by King Lear.
When he went mad, the fool who tended to him came
from Sarum. The king was sheltered here. Afterward,
his daughter Queen Cordelia rewarded the city by having
a castle built for the nobles.

Much later, Dovulus, the son of Earl Dalogmius of
Sarum, was the first warrior over the walls when the
Britons sacked Rome. King Belinus rewarded him with
the Eagle Statue that is in the market square.

Later, Velanus was a powerful king among the Belgae
on the continent. He came to the island to hear the
music of King Beldgabred and in the end married one
of the king’s daughters. When his brother-in-law — the
heir to Beldgabred — died, war broke out over the succession.

Velanus was instrumental in helping noble
Eldol to become king. As a result, Eldol gave Velanus
lands to rule. Later, many of the Belgae from the continent
came to live in his lands that are today called
Hampshire, Salisbury, Clarence, and Gloucester.

The Belgae here fought fiercely against the Romans,
but were eventually defeated. The Romans established
a military camp in the city of Sarum, taking
over the Visitor’s Quarter and laying out Roman buildings
there. They also took over the fort, of course, as a
barracks and headquarters.

The first Christians here were monks who established
the Abbey of Saint Josephe (son of Joseph of Arimathea,
and first Bishop of Britain.) When the black
monks came, and later the white monks, they too got
space for their abbeys. The old church has been rebuilt
and is now the cathedral, overseen by a bishop of the
British Church. Despite the presence of these, pagans
still populate the countryside, including many knightly
manors.


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There are alternate names for each of the manors, just so you all know. The ones in 5.1 are all modern ones, with a heavy anglo-saxon influence for obvious reasons. In more updated books, they're generally more thematically appropriate, new names on the left:

Beaverspoint --------- Baverstock
Barleyfield ---------- Berwick St James
Thorngate ---------- Broughton
Bridesvale----------Burcombe
Coldtown----------Cholderton East
Hilltown----------Dinton
Secretford ----------Durnford
Iderstown----------Idmiston
Larksnest----------Laverstock
Newtown---------- Newton
Newtown----------Newton Tony
Pittown----------Pitton
Brushwood ----------Shrewton
Pillarford ----------Stapleford
Longford----------Steeple Langford
Ramstown----------Tisbury
Winterstream----------Winterbourne Gunner
Winterstream Farm----------Winterbourne Stoke
Woodford----------Woodford
Wylye----------Wylye


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Crit------------Fumble = (£3 x LD) + (2d20 solidi x LD) = Avg. £4
Crit------------Failure = (£2 x LD) + (2d20 solidi x LD) = Avg. £3
Crit-----------Success = (£1 x LD) + (2d20 solidi x LD) = Avg. £2
Crit---------------Crit = 2d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £1

Success------Fumble = (£2 x LD) + (2d20 solidi x LD) = Avg. £3
Success------Failure = (£1 x LD) + (2d20 solidi x LD) = Avg. £2
Success-----Success = 2d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £1
Success---------Crit = 1d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £0.5

Failure-----Fumble = 2d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £1
Failure-----Failure = 1d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £0.5
Failure----Success = £0
Failure--------Crit = (£1 x LD) Shortfall. Avg. -£1

Fumble---Fumble = 1d20 solidi x LD = Avg. £0.5
Fumble---Failure = £0
Fumble--Success = (£1 x LD) Shortfall. Avg. -£1
Fumble------Crit = (£1 x LD) Shortfall. Avg. -£2

Alright darlings, it's almost that time of year. Christmas Time Math time.

Most of the winter phase is fairly simple on your end, it mostly just amounts to some optional non-combat roleplay and allocating skill points. The part that's (optionally) a little bit more involved is your manors's economic standing. There are a range of options for going about handling your finances, some of which are dirt simple, some of which take a bit more explaining and paperwork. First let's give a basic example of a manor, then let's define some terms.

Name: Barleyfield Manor
Customary Revenue: £10
Waste Available/Improved/Occupied/Total: 6/0/0/6
Investments: None
Army: 1 Lance

If this kind of think makes your eyes roll over in their sockets, you don't really need to worry about it if you don't want to. Cliffnotes version: Your manor takes care of all your knightly shit and you get some money every year to spend on extra shit.

Customary Revenue
It's good to be the Lord. You live in the largest and nicest house for miles around (the Manor Hall), staffed by a dozen or so various servants. One third of the surrounding countryside is made of your own personal fields, which the common folk are obliged by custom and law to till, plant, and harvest, as a form of rent for being allowed to work the other two-thirds for their own subsistence. Every family pays you rent for the small hovels you allow them to live in, and a fee at every use of your Mill and Oven, the only such amenities of their kind that they are allowed to use. When a peasant dies, you are entitled to their most valuable possession. When two peasants come into dispute, they pay a fee to be heard at the Manor Court, for your judgement. When a peasant is caught theiving in another's house, you have the right to hang him by the neck without trial, unless he pays you a steep fine. There is no crop harvested, no flock pastured, or craft practiced in your lands that you as the Lord of the Manor do not take privileges in.

The sum of these various sources of income, is called Customary Revenue. It goes into supporting your noble standard of living, keeping good food on your table and fine clothes on your back, keeping your various horses fed and stabled, keeping your weapons and armor in tip top shape, and keeping your soldiers in the finest grog, usually with a portion left over in cold hard cash to spend as you see fit, or save for later use.

This last category is called Discretionary Income. There are three options you have for determining your Discretionary Income for the year. A recurring figure that pops up in these formulas is "Customary Revenue / 10" so to save space and time, this will be abbreviated as LD, "Land Decimal". The LD of Barleyfield Manor is 1, since it's customary revenue is 10. If it had a customary revenue of 15, the LD would be 1.5

1. The Simple Method: Discretionary Income = £1 x LD
The Lord of Barleyfield Manor would receive £1 (20 solidi) This is the most reliable method, guaranteeing a fixed stipend on which to rely.

2. The Intermediate Method: Discretionary Income = 2d20 solidi x LD
The Lord of Barleyfield Manor would receive between 2 solidi and 40 solidi (£0.1 to £2). This option introduces risk and reward, while still averaging £1 per year over time.

3. The Advanced Method: See the post above this one.
Essentially, whoever id overseeing your Manor rolls their Stewardship Skill in opposition to the Weather. Every year a number between 1-20 is rolled for the weather conditions of each County, with 0 being perfect, and 20 indicating famine. This number is treated sort of like nature's combat skill, and that of your steward duke it out every year to see how much spare money you have when winter rolls around. The Left hand Column indicates the Stewardship result, the Right Hand Column indicates the Weather result. If this is sounding a bit like King Lear, it's not supposed to be quite as dramatic as that. Mills and houses get struck by lightning, bridges rot and collapse, fields flood, rivers dry, and as the lord of the manor it's your job (well, your steward's) to make sure everything is in order, making repairs, overseeing agriculture, ensuring proper storage, things of that nature.
This option provides the widest range of outcomes, between -2 and +5, but like the other's hovers around an average of £1.

Customary Revenue also figures into your standard of upkeep, at the rate of (3 x LD) + 3. Bleddyn would therefore have an upkeep of £6, which keeps him at 'Ordinary' Status, and also determines the size of your army.

Waste, Investment, and Improvement
In this period, what with the endemic warfare and prior limits to technology, every manor will inevitably have some land within it that is not being put to much use. As the Lord of the Manor, you have the ability to ameliorate the situation. At the start of the game, each manor has a certain fixed number of Waste Slots, equal to the LD x 6. Bleddyn's manor for example has 6, whereas Persidius' has 9. There are two ways to go about using wasteland.

Improving it: This includes clearing woodland, building new houses, and taking on more tenants. Improving a slot takes 1 year, £2 cost, and increases the Customary Revenue of the Manor by £1.

Building an Investment: This can include any number of rural industries, from fishing weirs, breweries, horse herds, sheep folds, and other such things. Building an investment occupies 3 slots, takes 1 year, costs £5, and provides £1 in free income per year.

Army
You are obliged to provide your liege-lord military service as a knight, and will generally have to provide a small complement of foot-soldiers with you depending on your income. The Standard requirement is for 1 Lance per manor. A Lance, as has been discussed before, is 1 knight, 1 Armiger, 1 Valet, and 4 foot soldiers. Customary Revenue tends to be cut into £5 chunks, with the difference inbetween obligated to supply additional spearmen in the knight's army.

£1 One Footman
£2 Two Footmen
£3 Three Footmen
£4 Four Footmen

£5 One Knight
£6 One Knight, One Footmen
£7 One Knight, Two Footmen
£8 One Knight, Three Footmen
£9 One Knight, Four Footmen

£10 One Lance
£11 One Lance, One Footmen
£12 One Lance, Two Footmen
£13 One Lance, Three Footmen
£14 Once Lance, Four Footmen

£15 One Lance, + One Knight

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Because of Insomnia, it's come time I revised the coin-carrying rules. I realized when a certain character recieved a rather large sum of money recently, that the method by which that money was conveyed to this person (a comically large bag of money) contradicted my earlier calculations regarding carrying capacity. So, let's set the record straight.

Both the Denarius (silver coin, aka a penny, plural 'pence', abbreviated 'd') and the Solidus (gold coin, aka shilling, abbreviated 's') are teeny tiny coins, roughly the same size. My personal point of reference is that they are same diameter as an american dime, but only half as thick. Very small, nothing at all like a $1 coin or a quarter, which I was using for my frame of reference before. There's about one spot in Wales where the romans ever found an ounce of gold, but aside from that precious metals are very much a foreign presence on the Isle of Britain. Since the Roman Empire abandoned britain almost a century ago, and took with it the roman army, roman bureaucracy, and roman trade, very little silver or gold makes its way to the old sceptered isle these days, so by the law of supply and demand, they are extremely precious.

Anyway, after a, quite frankly unnecessary, ammount of number crunching, I've arrived at some new figures. This is all accounting for volume, with an assumed stacking efficiency of about %50.

As for weight, when you're imagining and/or rolelaying carrying money, bear in mind that 1 Libra = 1 pounds weight in silver coins (240), and that gold is about twice as dense, so 120 solidi weigh a pound.

Coinpurse = Up to 240 coins, £1 - £12

Bag = Up to 1,200 coins, £5 - £ 60

Coffer or Satchel = Up to 4,800 coins, £20 - £240

Chest = Up to 24,000 coins, £100 - £1200

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I've decided to whip up a diagram of a typical Early Medieval Manor Hall, the kind wot you's lives in. Now, I preface this by saying that there are apparently zero surviving eamples of noble residences such as these without chimneys, and while that doesn't sound like such a big deal, it makes a ginormous difference to how you can lay a building out. Luckily, it appears that well-to-do commoners and merchants of Kent and Sussex kept building houses in a traditional style without chimneys, called a Wealden House, long enough and well enough that we nowadays have a general idea how building a heated house without a chimney kind of goes.

Image

Glossary:
1. Solar; The family room and bedroom. This has the largest of the Hall's few windows in order to let the sunlight in, hence 'solar'. The Lord and Lady's bed is here, as well as those of other resident family members, perhaps behind diving screen or curtains for privacy. Being the best lit, this is where detail activities such as weaving, sewing, reading, and writing take place. An interior staricase connects it to the Parlor below. The only way in is up the exterior staircase and through the second story door.
2. Parlor; (Often just lumped together with and considered an extension of the Solar), living room, or private meeting space from french plarlais "to speak", doubles as wardrobe and store room for clothes, weapons, and valuables. Does not connect to the Hall, and has no windows. The only way in and out is up the stairs and through the Solar door.
3. Great Hall; Where meals are taken, manorial court conducted, meetings held, visitors entertained, and where all the soldiers of the household lay down to sleep at night. This room can seat up to about 50 persons.
4. Larder and Buttery; Cold, sunken rooms, with thick walls, invariably located on the north end of the hall where they get the least sunlight. The Larder is where food is stored, the Buttery is where drinks are stored, a "butt" being an archaic word for a barrel or cask. Very large households might have a dedicated servant in charge of the buttery, called a butler, and in Scotland and northern England where a larder is called a spence, there may be a servant in charge of it called a spencer, these both being the origins of the respective word and name.

===============================================================================================================================================================

Map of Wylye Manor (also typical manor layout in general, minus the fortifications):

Image
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Last edited by Cpt._Funkotron on Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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