Hey, that sounds great! I will be looking forward to the new book. Ordered my PDF copy of Stupor Mundi a moment ago, so that should keep me busy for some time. Also ordered some historical books on the period from Amazon, found a couple that sound really interesting (in addition to the usual Crusades and Knights histories). Pity that the few English biographies of Frederick II seem hard to get...
I guess I can do without any more new RQ books, and it's pretty easy to create the professions yourself. Also, I got many Chaosium's Pendraken RPG books to draw inspiration from (even if they are Arthurian Romance: large parts of it are taken from high medieval period anyways.) One thing I intend to take from Pendraken and which is included in the BRP optional rules, is the opposed character traits. We've always liked the idea.
Rust, I guess I want to narrow the knight profession down to the most basic, noble cavalry fighter type, so it has a more definite place within the profession structure. Those who wear the spurs and carry the sword, sort of thing. And then let the noble be the courtier type, the soldier be the professional mercenary, and and let warrior cover any tribal and other less organised fighter types.
What about allegiances and magic? I havent' decided whether to include magic or not. Certainly I want to include situations where the PC might encounter situations which they might consider magical or miraculous, especially with crusader themes. But will I actually use a magic system, I dunno yet. Same thing goes with religion, does it work or not? If I do use magic, it will be more subtle and not so much fireballs etc. For allegiances heaven and hell would seem obvious to Christian characters, but then I should also include other religions, especially Islam and Judaism. Gnostics and heretics, certainly.