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If you paid the tribute your standard or living wouldn't have an immediate consequences for exactly the same reason. Harvest if next years income. Okay, but why? If that's how it supposed to work then two neighboring knights should just raid each other every other year. Gain £3 now but lose £2 next harvest. Rest up a year and then do it again. It doesn't make sense to me that the damage just automatically goes away or that goods lost can be "recovered" from nowhere.

Yes the get the temporary recover first. I goofed there on the sequence, but the temporary damage doesn''t all come back in one year unless a manor has all three sources of recovery and makes both Stewardship rolls. That's a highly unlieky combination. So odds are the manor is going to be down some income this year and for the next few. That's not how it is written in the book though. Per page 47 section 2, pasted below rolls are required for the recovery. (except for the gentlewoman bonus, which is why the gentlewoman bonus is so awesome. There is an explicit step in the Winter Phase Summary, on Page 47 and it goes: WINTER PHASE: STEP 4 The sequence of Step 4 each winter is: 1. Check Available Value. How many Lots? 2. Recovery of Temporary Damage: - Gentlewoman: 1 Lot, automatic - Stewardship: 1 Lot on a success - Russet Monks: 1 Lot on a success 3. Collect Income for the year. If it is less than 10 Lots (undamaged), see Shortage Results, below. 4. If the holding has Permanent Damage, it may be repaired by: - Gentlewoman: 1 Lot, automatic - Rebuild (if funds were invested last year): 1 Lot on a Stewardship success - Recovery: Stewardship roll (see Table 3.8) 5. Invest money for Rebuilding, or for new Improvements, but not both So if a manor is raided and take 3 temporary lots of damage, then while recovery of temporary damage comes first, it isn't really automatic recovery, unless you are talking about the gentlewoman bonus, it takes Stewardship rolls. So in ,most cases it will take a few years to recover all the lots, and income will be lower than if you paid the tribute. Now if someone has a wife with the gentlewoman bonus, and a Steward and Russet Monk with 20 Stewardship skills, then they can just laugh raids off (which, IMO is wrong as good should have been lost, but that's another argument), but for most knights, with only a Steward with something like a 15 skill to rely on the odds are that it will take them about 4 years to recover the lots and the income.

I'm really curious about where Gorlois' fantastic ships in the GPC are from. Ys? Hy-Breaseal? I think it has something to do with Ygraine's homeland, and I suspect that she is being made out to be a Faerie bride, but I can't pick up enough clues to figure out what the ships are supposed to be or from where. Could someone pass on a hint to the unenlightened?

That's not the way it looks in Page 46. WINTER PHASE: STEP 4 The sequence of Step 4 each winter is: 1. Check Available Value. How many Lots? 2. Recovery of Temporary Damage: - Gentlewoman: 1 Lot, automatic - Stewardship: 1 Lot on a success - Russet Monks: 1 Lot on a success Collect Income for the year. If it is less than 10 Lots (undamaged), see Shortage Results, below. 4. If the holding has Permanent Damage, it may be repaired by: - Gentlewoman: 1 Lot, automatic - Rebuild (if funds were invested last year): 1 Lot on a Stewardship success - Recovery: Stewardship roll (see Table 3.8) 5. Invest money for Rebuilding, or for new Improvements, but not both. So it looks to me that it takes several years to get three lots back from temporary damage. The difference with permanent damage is that it tends to cost more and impedes the building of improvements. Yup. No it doesn't. If you pay tribute and convert goods to coin, you don't take any lot damage, you just lose income. But with a raid you suffer temporary lot damage, specifically 3 lots per Estate (although I agree with you that it could vary depending on how much time and effort the Saxons put towards it), and as I pointed out it take time to for those lots to come back. Now if a Knight has a wife with the gentlewoman bonus and a Steward and Russet Monk , both with Stewardship 20, he can recover 3 lots in one year, but for most knights it will take at least 3 years to get the lots back, with a reduced income in the meantime. The key phase is "at times". There are probably other times where two Saxon Kings come to an arrangement with one extorting one side of the kingdom, with the other King extorting the opposite side. Then other years they have a falling out over who got the better deal and both extort everybody. But if Cerdic is trying to get lands to submit to his rule, he has an incentive to show that doing so is advantageous to those under his protection.

Yes but income that still reduces the manors income until the lots are recovered with Stewardship and Gentlewoman bonuses. Worse still income is collected before lots are recovered, so the knight is better off paying the the £3 in tribute, rather than losing the £3 in income this year, £2 the next, and £1 the year after that (=£6)- or more if the Steward fails some rolls. Yes, plus probably a few knights will go on a land grab during this time, while Salisbury is relatively weak. An estate holder in a remote location could grab a manor or two and reduce her holdings further. Especially if the Countess has to focus of defending the borders against Saxon raiders. Even with the conversion rate, paying tribute is the most economical choice. The best a raided manor will do is break even per my example above, unless they can drive off the raiders, or the wife has the gentlewoman bonus. That is assuming you are using the lots system from Estate, which the OP seems to be doing. But if just using the GPC both results are about the same, but I could see this escalating to pillaging if Ellen is stubborn about paying, or if multiple Saxons raid at once. I also suspect there is probably a bit of a deal going on between the Saxons to lay off those who pay tribute to one of them, as paying tribute is no longer workable if the manor still gets raided. Plus that would prevent the manor from generating the income required to pay the tribute next year, killing the golden goose. I'm not saying there is a formal agreement between the Saxons and a pecking order, but I suspect they know who is paying tribute to who and tend to leave them alone that year. Usually. I also suspect that if Ellen always plays Saxon C but never pays A or B then A and B will probably get annoyed and consider raiding. But then I also suspect that if Ellen always payed Saxon C then he might consider that he is gaining ground here an possibly put the word out to leave Salisbury alone. I think it all depends on how the diplomatic stuff plays out. If Ellen is considering swearing fealty to or even marrying (!) Cerdic then he probably protects her for a year or so while the negotiations are going on. If, after a few years, he thinks she is playing him, then he stops protecting her.

Good questions. Logically I'd assume that the guy being grappled should be able to fend off the grappler with his weapon before he gets grappled, the description does state that the tactic is risky, and, in earlier editions of KAP, when Grapple was a skill, you did pit Grapple against the opponent's weapon skill. So I think the intention is that it id an opposed DEX vs. weapon roll until the grappler gets a hold. Then the opponent has to grapple back or use a dagger. Now in Mallory grappling seems to be much more successful that the KAP rules would indicate, but maybe such actions caught the opponents by surprise and so were unopposed? I believe the idea is that if the dagger user wins he does not escape (that requires a grapple roll) but he does do damage, as per a dagger (Damage -1d6). No, but it seems to be a case of timing, and probably based on their relative DEX scores. If the grappled opponent has a higher DEX score and wins the opposed STR test he breaks out before the grappler can attempt to remove his helm, forcing the grappler to do something else (like try to grapple again to get a hold). If the grappler has a higher DEX and goes first, then his attempt to unhelm the other character happens before the other can try to break free, and if successful then the other character is un-helmeted from then on, regardless of it he breaks free or not.

Well since one pound sterling is defined as the value of one pound of silver then 100 pounds of silver would be worth £100 (maybe less if they are based on Roman pounds vs. Imperial ones, but lets not go there) 1 cow is worth about 80d.(milk cows are worth 120d and oxen are worth 180d ) or four cows to the £. 100 cows would be worth about £25 minimum. That works out to a total of around £125-175 with an average of around £150. Well except for it being Count Roderick/Robert and not Roger your correct. But keep in mind that while the Count has around 150 manors, only 30 or so are held by landed knights who must pay tribute. The rest are owned directly by the young Count (and control in regency by his mother the countess). So it looks like the landed knights are paying about £90 with the Countess paying the remaining £60. But it's not really that way. Since Cerdic is demanding 100 pounds of silver and harvests are in goods, then Ellen must be converting goods into to coin at a 2:1 ratio. So the tribute is closer to £250, meaning the Countess is paying £160 and the vassal knights £90. Technically. legal isn't really the term here, as it's not like a vassal knight could call the cops and report this. This would be an impost or arbitrary tax of some sort. That said a noble can also call for a voluntary tax, and considering the situation the Countess and that does ask her advisors so it's not all that Arbitrary, at least not on her part. Cerdic probably gets a check. Some knights might complain about it (at court) but considering the Countess is really the victim of a shakedown those knights won't exactly look all that loyal for complaining or leaving her footing the entire bill. Loyal knights would want to help their liege, and keep in mind that it is well within a lord's rights to strip vassal of their land if they feel said vassals are being disloyal. It's not like the Countess has many options, it pay or fight and either way the vassal knights will have to do their bit. As much as the Saxon raiders can steal. That actually several questions together and the answer is a bit more complicated that the way you put it. First off yes the Saxons get away with 30% of a manor's income, or about £3, the same as the tribute, but as per page 45 of the Book of the Estate, the raid also damages 3 lots on the manor, which reduce the income of the manor by 1 each until they are recovered(per page 46) . It usually takes a stewardship roll to recover one lot, with the Gentlewoman bonus providing a second lot, so most manors will take 3-6 years to fully recover from a raid. So not only does the manor lose the income from the raid, but also for the next few years. Probably not. Especially places that on the out side of the county like Vagon. But then consider what happens. If you were a knight who got raided and suffered hardship while a knight in a manor 5 miles away didn't, maybe you might go raid him? How about if he refused to pay tribute? What is he going to do about it if you do? Complain to the Countess? Maybe he's a nice guy and chips in to help his neighbors and shares the burden somewhat? Or maybe some neighbor on the other side of the county goes raiding because Salisbury looks weak and vulnerable? Only if they raid more than once per year. But the lot damage is cumulative. What that means is something like this: Year 1: Manor produces £10, but gets raided and loses £3 income, leaving the knight with £7. 3 lots take temporary damage, and the Steward is able to recover 1 lot over the Winter Phase Year 2: Manor produces £8 due to lot damage, but gets raided and loses £3 income, leaving the knight with £5, and take 3 lots take temporary damage, and the Steward is able to recover 1 lot over the Winter Phase. Year 3: Manor produces £6 due to lot damage, but gets raided and loses £3 income, leaving the knight with £3, and take 3 lots take temporary damage, and the Steward is able to recover 1 lot over the Winter Phase. Year 4: Manor produces £4 due to lot damage, but gets raided and loses £3 income, leaving the knight with £1, and take 3 lots take temporary damage, and the Steward is able to recover 1 lot over the Winter Phase. Year 5: Manor produces £2 due to lot damage, but gets raided and loses all it's income, leaving the knight with no income, and take 2 lots take temporary damage (because that's all thats left), and the Steward is able to recover 1 lot over the Winter Phase. Year 6+: Manor produces £1 due to lot damage, but looses it all to raiding and the steward can only recover the one lot back over the winter. It will never get any better until the raids stop. That is assuming the Steward makes his skill roll every year. In play it is probably worse. It cheaper to pay the tribute. Probably nothing. It's like a mob protection racket. Your mostly paying for protection from them. You could, but... Is probably about right. Maybe a smart diplomat could try to invoke Cerdic's Honor passion to get help, but it's a longshot. Even if he does decide to help he might just get the other Saxon leader to reduce his demands. Then again he might just help out to show the Countess why she should swear fealty to him. Bingo! Give yourself a prize. How might they appeal or how might the other lord help? To appeal you send a messenger to the one who you are shelling out too and say "So & So in invading, we need help, and you said you would help." Then you have to hope that the one you are paying tribute to (Cerdic) decides to help, probably by sending men to help defend you lands. Then you have to hope that you win, and that once the fighting is over Cerdic doesn't decide you have such a nice place that he doesn't want to leave. Probably by working a deal with Cedric or some other Saxon in the South to get permission to go through their lands - for a cut of course. It's not so gutsy when said enemy is weak and disorganized. Yup. You kill Cerdic and you paint a target on your back and hoards of Saxons invade your lands and take them. Meanwhile most of your neighbors keep their heads down and hope the Saxons leave them alone for a few years so that they can strengthen their forces. Britain is still recovering from the wars at the end of Uther's reign, and lacks leaders, especially a High King to unite everybody. Saxons probably are using a manor system, as much as a bunch of semi-defended farms with the leaders having long houses where they keep their warriors, but lets keep it simple and assume that they are manors for game purposes.Your PKs can probably pull off a raid or two, assuming they can get . Getting into Saxon lands is easy, and quite a few of thier farmsteads would be semi-defended at best. But since it takes several days to raid, they PKs will probably run into a good sized group of warriors before they get out. Then there is the risk of the Saxons doing a counter raid in response to the PKs counter-raid, or maybe even just taking on a weregeld (blood price) for the men the PK killed while raiding. So the might PK split £3 from raiding and the Saxons up their tribute next year to £105 in silver because of the men the PK killed. The PKs would split the same amount as they would loose in a raid. About £3 per "manor" or equivalent. But to raid a manor in one day the PKs would need 32 times the number of defenders. If we assume 3 defenders per "manor" then that means the PKs need 96 men to raid a manor in a day. So if the PKs take 3 in plunder, and give 1/3rd of that to their liege per custom, and approximately another third is split among the foot solders, the knights get to split £1 between them. Now with a little luck they might be able to stick around for several days and raid a few manors, but then they run the risk of running into the Saxon war band that will eventually be sent after them, which should be considerably larger than the PKs force.. So it's not easy, doesn't pay particular well, and could have repercussions. Yes it sucks. That's the whole point. The Saxons have the Brits over a barrel and theres not much the Brits can do about it. The good news is that the Brits get their revenge when Arthur comes to power. The whole tribute thing is to help show just why having a High King, especially Arthur is so badly needed.

Yeah, I did use your formula listed above with some rounding off, which is why the values are fairly close. Yeah, but it looks like some officers also cap out (i.e. castelllans at £3) while other do not. So I'll have to put the low cap down around 50 for £1. At least for Stewards. I was also thinking that maybe the glory awarded to an officer should vary depending on who he is an officer of. It would seem to me that being the Marshal for a king should be more glorious than being the Marshal of a minor estate holder.

Okay. I rounded off mandrill_one's formula to the nearest £0.5, similar to what you did, and matched it up to the existing values. I'm going to combine the values so that we get ranges like: £1000-1200 = £5, 1300-1600 = £5.5, £1700-2200 = £6 and so forth. That should give us a much smaller table, and be easier to scale for different officers and bonuses. Something like this: Income Landholder Pay Bonus £60.5-£80 Minor Baron £0.5 £80.5-£107 Minor Baron, Bishop or Abbot £1 £108-£143 Minor Baron £1.5 £144-£191 Minor Baron £2 £192-£255 Minor Baron £2.5 £256.5-£340.5 Baron £3 £342.5-£454.5 £3.5 £457-£607 Rich Baron £4 £610.5-£810 Duke £4.5 £814.5-£1081 Duke £5 £1087.5-£1443 King Cadwyr £5.5 £1451.5-£1926 Count Salisbury £6 £1937-£2570.5 £6.5 £2585.5-£3431 £7 £3450.5-£4579 £7.5 £4605.5-£6111.5 £8 £6147-£8157 £8.5 £8204-£10887 King Uther £9 £10950-£14530.5 £9.5 £14614.5-£19393 £10 £19505.5-£25883.5 £10.5 £26033-£34545.5 £11 £34745.5-£46106.5 £11.5 £46373.5-£61536.5 £12

I wonder if trying it to the discretionary funds instead of the Total Customary Revenue makes more sense, since discretionary funds increase at a slower rate? BTW, does anyone remember what book has the income for Uther? Is it Book of Uther, Warlord, or Estate? I want to compare the 9 for Royal Marshal to the value derived from mandril_one's formula. I'm working on a streamlined table based on his formula, rounding everything off to the nearest quarter or half librium. I'm thinking I can just add a list of multipliers/modifiers to get the other officer positions, bribes and such, so we could scale the results for any holding.

So based on the answers I take it that there is no official method? Okay that makes it easier. Thanks. The reason why I mentioned court costs is that there is an throwaway line that links officer pay to the revenue generated by a lord's court. But tying it to revenue is a lot simpler.

That's actually what the bonus pay is, per the BotE and BotW. For instance a typical officer gets around £3 in bonus pay, which is automatically used to improve his standard of maintenance to rick.

Yeah, but in this case there are going to be a few rumors going around. It will probably be a topic of gossip at the next feast. He had a bad year a few sessions back and and took two major wounds so people will probably assume he received a ghastly injury below the belt. I'm on board with that, but the PK does have a high Chaste score. The whole situation should play out in a entertaining enough fashion. One of the PKs is marring off his eldest daughter to a neighboring knight, so there will be a feast and the "reluctant knight" will be quite the topic. Then the PKs are going off on campaign with General Aetius (I'm running very early in the timeline) and he will be away from home for a year or two. So his wife will buy a new dress and some perfume, use the fashion skill to boost her APP, see the local witch to buy a love philter, and all that upon his return.

Is it? It might be an interesting theroy, but that's all it is.There isn't anything in Lovecraft's work to support that theory. Can you think on any Mythos stories that supports your theory? I can only think of one off the top ofmy head, and that was a Robert Bloch episode of Star Trek. Sounds more like Gloranthan Illumination. The problem is that view doesn't match up with the behavior we see in the stories. Once again, I ask just how would you handle that in play?

Yup, the whole reason why the Knight went after her was because there was no one else to speak of with a claim, so he figured he had a better chance of getting the land. I agree. This was partly due to the player misunderstanding some things early on and not fixing them later due to other distractions. In reality the wife worked that all out with the count a decade ago, when the PK followed through on taking on squire of the widows previous husband as a squire and getting him knighted, but the player missed it. The Count is planning of granting the land (Broughton) to the PKs son when he gets knighted in a year or two. As the PK in question is also Castellan of DuPlain, and has a enough to support himself, this shouldn't be a burden on the elder knight, who will be able to live on in semi-retirement as a Castellan. Yup. The only reason why the woman didn't do so was because the PK was a big hero in battle and helped to save the Count's life last year and was promoted to Deputy Marshal. . So right now she's wondering what's wrong.Maybe he has a battle injury that impairs his ability to do his husbandly duties? The reason why the PK acted the way he did was because of bad advice from the first player. Often my players try to help each other, and that's where they usually mess things up. In this participial case the first PK mis-advised the second, overlooking the differences in their relative situations. So both players should be in for some surprises next year! But, as per my first reply, I'd certainly let them avoid rolling on the childbirth table if that's what they want.

Slight miscommunication. If Lady X was an heiress and had no previous children and then married Lord Y, her first child would be her heir. If Lady X isn't an heiress, but a widow, then her children would not inherent the land, her previous husband's children would. Normally those are one and the same, but if she remarries I don't believe she gets to pass on the land. In both of the cases I mentioned the Knights are older knights who are remarrying older widows who do not have any living heirs. In the first case, an arrangement was made prior to marriage to make it easier for the knight's son to take over the land. In the second case the knight just remarried and his actions will cause some difficulties with his wife. In both cases the PKs actions will probably be moot as they are both on very good terms with the Count who can and will simply grant them both the land and smooth everything over. This was actually in the works for both knights but neither player has figured that out yet due to other concerns. It's what happens when the PKS spend several years away on campaign and don't get to tidy things up at court. Yup, except for the bit I mentioned about widows.

Willow, your off to a good start. Some "teething problems" are to be expected with a new system. No GM get's it perfect all the time, at least none that I've seen. I know I goof up at least one thing each session, and suspect a few others that I fail to spot. To help a little, the £6 amount was the official amount from KAP3 through to KAP 5.1 or so. The 10 came in latter supplements where they went into a bit more of a detailed breakdown of the economics of a manor. Now a knight sees a little more income, but has higher expenses so it's mostly a wash. He just ends up with £1 to spend during the year on additional stuff, which is actually the equivalent of a typicality income of a peasant family. Raids, seiges, battles and other aspects of war are generally beyond the scope of what is considered legal. It's how nobles expand thier holdings and get more wealth. THat said, if things go "too far" a liege lord, such as the king, could step in and put a stop to it, at least for a time. It depends a lot of the relative power of the feuding lords, the king, how intense the fued is, and what else is going on. It's kinda part of the whole feudal structure. If the nobles didn't fight among themselves then they wouldn't need as many soldiers or knights, and the whole thing would start to change. Historically, once people started to realize and consider peace to be more profitable, kings switched to smaller professional armies and mercenaries with better equipment do the fighting while the commoners were left flourish and really make money. As for Alver's son, he would be a good choice to show up someday and want to clear his father's name or seek vengeance. It's classic adventure stuff, as you already laid all the groundwork for his actions, so the players will understand why he is acting the way he does.

I'm having trouble figuring out what the officer bonus pay would be for Salisbury. According to table 3.4 in the Book of the Warlord, A Marshal's bonus pay (devoted to his upkeep) is, according to the customary revenue: £100= £1, £300 = £3, £1000= £5 Salisbury has a customary revenue of £1574, so what would the Marshal's pay be? I assume there is some method to figure this out by court costs of something but I don't know what it is.

Just to chime in and agree with what Morien said. basically: If you read the second paragraph where it says "up to one roll per" the impression is that the roll is somewhat optional. Generally speaking if men and women act like men and women, especially husbands and wives, then a childbirth roll is in order. But, under certain circumstances, I've let players avoid making that roll. I have a couple of PKs in the campaign with sons who who re-married to women with land. As a second son would have a stronger claim to the land that the eldest (since the land came from the wife), both have deiced to avoid childbirth to ensure that their eldest sons (both of which are now squires) inherent the land. So if you got a PK who doesn't want to roll on the childbirth table, in most cases I'd say it would be optional. Of course there might be repercussions from that, or even circumstances where they might be forced to make a roll. Two points. First as Morien mentioned, by the rules you can only use Passions for inspiration (although there are a few who allow Traits to be used as a houserule). Secondly the normal bonus for inspiration is +10, not +20. A critical inspiration roll does not give +20, but instead doubles the value of the skill be inspired. The only way to get +20 from inspiration would be if a character made a critical inspiration roll, which doubles a skill, and had a 20 skill. Is probably a death sentence depending on how far below zero the character was, how many wounds they suffered, and if any magical healing was possible. I've seen two characters come back from -11 (in the same game session) thanks to great First Aid rolls. I've even had a character come back from around -25, but it was a major NPC to the stroyline, and involved a Grail appearance -but it was definitely a deus ex machina. As Morien pointed out, the Count probably doesn't have the authority of High Justice- namely the ability to try and execute people, especially nobles. That power is usually reserved for Kings. Now hanging a peasant or some such might slip under the radar, and killing bandits, especially along the kings road, on the spot is generally allowed, but executing a knight out of hand would be a big problem. Also, killing is not a crime. Murder is. Knights are expected to fight and kill people. That's basically their job. This situation would not be murder as the knights were clearly fighting in combat, which isn't a crime. Killing the defeated knight is the most questionable act as it is the closest to simple murder, if the defeated knight had surrendered. If not it is more of a fortunes of war thing. The same would hold true to a duel, although occasionally the king could be influenced to rule such as a murder. Sir Alver shouldn't be hung as a thief, as he didn't steal anything. Knights killing and robbing peasants is all part of raiding and plundering. It's common stuff that all knights engage in - or nearly all, some of the really ultra chivalrous types might abstain from it. Now raiding a nobles lands and killing his peasants is a totally honorable and acceptable thing for knights to do. It might be cruel, but acceptable. It's also an offense and act of war against the landholder, the peasants are technically his property.. So none of the Levocmagus knights should be hung as thieves, but they might have been acceptably killed during the fighting, without any fallout for the defending landholder. Even including finishing off a downed foe or two. Basically the big offense here is to the landholder and his leige-not to the poor peasants who suffered the brunt of the violence. It's not fair but it's certainly feudal. But generally the survivors would probably be hauled off to Sarum and then left to rot for a bit and probably ransomed off to Levcomagus. Probably the Count, with his feud, would order a counter raid, and the PKs could go into Levocmagus territory and kill and rob their serfs. That's what knight do. Maybe some character pick up a Hate passion here and there as relatives are killed and things become personal. Okay this time the rules are a bit confusing. Once again Morien is correct. What happened is that the original income from a manor was £6, the same as the upkeep for a knight and his family, but in latter supplements it was increased to £10 (actually it much. much higher than that, but £10 is what the knight "sees"), but that covered additional expenses, such as a some foot soldiers and servants. In the end, typical yearly income, after expenses, is only £1. The book of the estate gives a breakdown of the expenses. Roughly: £5.5 goes to maintaining the knight, his squire, their mounts, two footmen for the knight (and his liege) and an additional footman for the King. £2.5 goes to maintaining the wife, her handmaiden, and the chaplain (who also doubles as the court clerk and scribe, as he is literate) £1 goes to maintaining the children £1 is left over as discretionary funds, which can be spent on conspicuous consumption, additional purchases, improvements to the manor, furniture and other "treasure" or, if they are really crazy, converted to coin at 2:1 (so £1 becomes £ ½ in coin) and saved. The manor mostly just maintains the knight and his family, which most of his wealth coming from ransoms, battle plunder (armor and horses, in particular), rewards from their liege lords, adventuring, and raiding (like the Levcomagus knights were doing in your adventure). Now if a knight has some money he can build some improvements which can provide a modest increase to his income, but most knights will get the bulk of their wealth by fighting.

There is a difference though. In Lovecraft it's not about ignorance and preconceptions. but that, according to HPL, these are beings things that we cannot comprehend and accept. It's not just about challenging believes and knowledge, but about confronting things that we are mentally incapable of accepting. The closest thing to it were the Medusuan's from Star Trek. If someone got a glimpse of one they would supposedly go insane. And that's in a futuristic enlightened society. Now, like soltakss, this is a concept that I have trouble with, but that's how HPL wrote it. I'm also fine with alternating that, but it could alter the basic tone of CoC. If you want to divert from that idea, how would you run with it?

The interesting this about is is that both are taken from the viewpoint of the "modern" human. A technological singularity might be completely comprehensible to a futuristic humanity after the event.

Yes, but what does that mean as far as investigators and gameplay goes? Essentially a story like Alien or Independence Day or War of the Worlds all fit in the Lovecraft Universe.The major differences are mostly point of view and the difficulty in accepting it. So nothing changes, unless the GM wants to run the Mythos races with a different attitude towards humanity. It's kinda like how in Star Trek they had to be careful with how they interacted with less advanced cultures, as the natives couldn't handle the sudden and major chances that would come about with the existence of aliens and advanced technology. But that way the goodie-goodie Federation. If Mythos races are more like the Klingons or Cardassians then they could still come across as monstrous.

Quite probably. I've seen and read stuff about him that claim a link between the Mythos stuff and Lovecraft's difficulties in dealing with people in the real world. R'lyeh was apparently inspired by New Yorck City (which Lovecraft hated). SO character's in Lovecraft's fiction couldn't deal with the hidden dark truths of the universe, in part becuase Lovecraft had difficulty dealing with the world outside of Providence. Still, that's the paradigm we all agree to accept when we play CoC. It's a sweeping generalization, but not without a grain of truth behind it. Most people 100 years ago would have a hard time understanding concepts such as smart phones or the internet. So on the one hand, yes the Mythos could just be a lack of understanding or more advanced technology or mental abilities. But how much does that change? If the various Mythos races are just advanced aliens who view humans as a lower lifeform, usually not worth consideration or bothering about, it doesn't really change anything. Unless you want to change the Mythos races' view of humans, and how they interact with them. Are you thinking of making them benevolent, or at least ambivalent about humanity?

It's much like with the ladies campaign. More emphasis on court. Probably more emphasis on battles too, as capturing a manor or three over a summer becomes a real option. Less small scale stuff, as it would take a greater rewards to merit the risk, or move the needle. Fifty libra is a small fortune to a knight, but will barely keep even a minor lord's entourage fed for a year.

Definitely. I've had a PK Pennath (Minor King, really an Estate Holder in KAP5) in a previous campaign and the big game did tend to take PK away from the typical adventuring knight game. For instance he had to avoid a lot of tournaments as his ransom could bankrupt him. It's much easier for a knight to acquire and tuck away 18 libra from adventuring than it is for a major noble to accumulate a comparative amount of wealth.To get big money they have to act on a bigger scale.Ransom is a gamer changer here. Both to the PK lord who must pay it, and to anyone under him or who captures him. It paints a big target on the noble's back. That's what hurts the adventuring. If a PK vassal knight has a run of bad luck and has to pay a couple of ransoms, he might be broke, but probably can pay it and still have enough left over to continue on. If it happens to a major noble, he's in deep trouble. Just organizing and sending the ransom is a major logistics problem, and a financial burden on all of his vassals. For the most part the rewards aren't worth the risk.