Morien

Book of the Estates scales down to £10 single manor level, it even has an example £10 manor. So you don't have to give the Player-knights estates in order to use the Book of the Estate. Possibly a VERY bad idea, more of this below. Yes, the manors can be gathered into a single estate if everyone agrees. I am not sure why the PK would wish to do this, though? He has way more flexibility when the manors are individual manors. I guess if some of the manors are just gifts (non-inheritable), then gathering them into a granted (inheritable) estate would be a good thing for him, but otherwise, I don't see the point. However, singling a single player out that you just want to give his character an estate out of the blue is a VERY BAD IDEA and smacks of favoritism ("Why his PK gets an estate and my character didn't?"). Like I said in the beginning, you don't have to have estate-sized holdings in order to use the Book of the Estate. I think none. They are rare, much rarer than the overly generous NPC landholdings in KAP 5.2 gave to understand. However, if you really really wish to, you could turn the bannerets of West Lavington and Lady Adwen's inheritance into two estates. However, be aware that Greg downgraded Adwen's landholdings in a forum post, and that is a good indication to me that bannerets should not exist as vassals of the Count of Salisbury: there are simply not enough vassal manors. I think I have mentioned often enough that I think giving an estate to a PK who already holds multiple manors is: 1) a bad idea, and 2) unnecessary. Some hundreds are small, down to a single manor. (Example: "Pool Hundredal Manor: £13.1+£0.4; Jagent, Pool H.; £13.1 food render, and hundred court (£0.4)." The manor IS the Hundred and vice versa.) Some are individual estates (for simplicity, Book of the Estate's example estates are like this, but this is very much just a simplification, not the norm). Most are collections of manors, each of which are possibly owned by different barons/knights, and there might even be (parts of) an estate mixed in. But estates are rare to begin with. Since you have the Book of the Warlord, it has some examples of Manors and Hundreds when generating a random Barony. You can see how complicated this gets. For example, Bordermark Manor: "Bordermark: £12; Salisbury, Hillfort H.; £12 food render. £24 is held by Ludshall [sic] Castle (Sheriff), £18 by Count Salisbury, £12 by Ramstown Manor." So this is saying that Hillfort Hundred is divided thusly: Bordermark Manor: £12 (owner: whoever this random barony is for) Likely 2-3 unnamed manors: £24 (owner: Llud's Hall Castle, i.e. whoever the King appoints as the Sheriff of Salisbury and Gentian counties.) Likely 2 unnamed manors: £18 (owner: Count Salisbury) Ramstown Manor: £12 (owner: Whoever is the lord of Ramstown Manor) Of course, the above is contradicted by Count of Salisbury's holdings later on in the book (and earlier) where it is said that he holds Hillfort Hundred worth £61.2...

Surely she would have a valet of some sort, at least, to look after her horse(s)? Even if she is a shieldmaiden and not a knight, surely she would prefer to ride rather than walk? As for the weirs and fisheries, one big thing to note for riverside manors/estates... Some of these weirs may have already been built and are part of the assized rent (see example estates). Also, does her manor straddle the river, or does she only own land on one bank? This limits the number of weirs, too. In the end, though, it is not a huge issue. If she builds, say, 3 weirs and a fishery, that is about £25 spent over 4 years for an income of £3 per year. So, she has about recovered her money in 8 years after finishing to build, which means in about 12 years. Sure, she gets nice little income after that if she survives that long, but after she croaks, the estate will be reassessed at the new value. No biggie. If she builds 8 weirs and 3 fisheries and a riding and route, that is £110 investment (good luck affording it), and at least 12 years of building. Sure, the income is nice, £8 per year, but it will be about over another 12 years before she sees a profit. This is already a generation, so it is debatable if she actually realizes a profit before dying and the manor going to her heirs. So it is more of a self-correcting 'problem'. As far as I am concerned, it is much less unbalancing when PKs spend their money on investments, than if they are suddenly raising a huge mercenary army.

True. Although I do remember one campaign I played back in the day, where the GM had expected a much more combat-optimized group, rather than our collection of misfits, scholars and bards. Needless to say, we developed a signature tactic, mostly involving running away, waving our hands and screaming 'run away, run away!'. Sure, we managed to usually come back later on and attrition the enemy to death, but we certainly didn't feel like big damn heroes. I am not sure if the GM had recalibrated the campaign for us and simply overestimated our abilities, or if he just ran the thing as it was. As for my GMing style in Pendragon... I don't usually send the PKs off on an adventure that I'd expect them to wipe out on. On the other hand, if the PKs insist on going after a dragon, I am not going to nerf the dragon so that they can win. Then of course there are adventures where trying is the whole point and no one expects to succeed. The Circlet of Gold is one of these types, and Grail Quest is full of these kinds of 'you are not the chosen one' situations, which are -almost- impossible for a PK, save for amazing luck at rolling dice.

Which is kinda funny since there is a huge difference between a tomb-raiding (lots of trap) or a city-centric (lots of locks and climbing and thieving opportunities) adventure and a wilderness-centric one for a rogue, and vice versa for a ranger. Not all D&D adventures are equally optimized for all character classes.

True, but I would be tempted to give a positive modifier for childbirth that year...

I believe Stones = Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey. A bit downriver from Windsor and south-southwest from Heathrow Airport. As for the size of the river at that point, that totally sounds like a GM's call. You choose. Is it upriver or downriver from Stains itself?

ALL weapons should start at 10. Not just 'other weapons'.

That's what we are doing in our current campaign. Works like a treat, let me tell you. Most people still focus on a single weapon (although if it is a non-sword, then Sword is quickly raised to 15 as a secondary backup, especially since some challenges are sword-only), but it ensures that the knights are not total fumble-fingers if they pick up a mace or a great sword. Plus, it is very easy to implement, even in mid-campaign. This is probably what I would do if I were to start a new campaign. Go full in on the attribute defaults for all skills and be done with it.

I am not Dr Nick, but I took it to be more of an aspirational thing. You know, one of those things that even if the PKs do not start within Logres, they will want to become Round Table Knights and since the GM is interested in telling that story, he will ensure that they will get involved and earn their spot eventually.

So... why put them in Lancashire and the Perilous Forest in the first place, then? Rather than, say, in Cameliard or somewhere in Logres (like Bedegraine, post 481)? Both of those places would be still close to the Perilous Forest but involved with stuff happening in Logres and GPC.

As far as I know, Perilous Forest has most of the information on Listeneisse. Greg pretty much told us to steer clear of anything concerned with Listeneisse when we were writing Book of Sires, so that is why it doesn't show up at all in that book. GPC has some information as well, but a lot of it is copied almost verbatim from Perilous Forest, and lacks the detailed maps and location information anyway. Some people might have more information to share with you, but given the starting position you have in mind, your campaign is going to be VERY different from the default GPC one. So you might just as well go ahead and make it up yourself, since your needs (the PKs are local) are going to be markedly different from what the main take is (the PKs are there to adventure).

Correct. Yep. Good way to bring those traits into play.

p. 46: "Rebuilding may be attempted by paying half the value of a Lot, once per year. Rebuilding replaces the chance to build an Investment or Improvement in the same year." Yes, it can be. But as it says above, you can't build an Investment nor an Improvement during the same year you are doing Rebuilding.

There are two different methods: 1) RAW: use the numbers in Appendix 6 and guesstimate missing glory awards. In this system Saxon Raider is 35 Glory. 2) Greg's house rules for human opponents: Sum of used skills + 1% Glory for nobles. In this system Saxon Warrior is 27 Glory if they throw their javelin before melee and 14 if it is axe melee from the start. The two systems are SEPARATE systems. They are not supposed to match seamlessly. Use one or the other.

No. This is Participation Glory: "for taking on". You get the Glory for going on this quest, whether or not you succeed. You notice that all the subsequent Task Glory (killing the King, gaining the Red Blade) will be shared. Not sure what it is based on. Looking at the stats they look identical to the basic foot soldier in the 5.2, so just 10 Glory each, IMHO. (Foot soldiers with those same stats had 10 Glory in 4th edition, so I am sticking to it. It is possible that Greg or whoever based it on Picts, figuring that one tribal warrior is the same as another one. Personally, I find the rulebook's foot soldiers too weak, they are weaker than bandits, and instead use Entourage's spearmen.)

Sum of all combat skills USED in the encounter. So a knight with 2000 Glory, and skill 15 in Sword, Lance and Horsemanship would be worth 65 Glory if the fight starts on horseback with Lances and then continues with Swords (whether mounted or on foot), 50 Glory if the fight starts on horseback with Lances or Swords and is settled with the same weapon, and 35 Glory if it is a duel on foot with Swords. You are mixing two different systems here. It is one or the other. Using Greg's houserule, the Saxon Warrior would likely be just 14 (as a commoner, don't worry about the Glory), or 27 if they throw a javelin (skill 13) first. Ordinary bandits are trash, not something you really brag about defeating (although the true trash is the ordinary foot soldier, grr, see the next reply for more on that). And Saxon Warriors are way more dangerous than Pict Warriors on straight-up combat: Armor 6+6 and Axe 14 with 5d6+1d6 damage vs. Armor 3 and Great Axe 15 with 4d6+1d6 damage. Not to even take SIZ (16 vs. 8 ) and HP (28 vs. 19) into account.

Don't we all? My guess: Greg just eyeballing it and picking a number from 5 (trash, missile troops), 10 (main infantry), 15 (main cavalry) and 20 (elite cavalry).

Here is the thing. This whole Appendix 6 is based on 4th Edition Glory (although the knightly opponent Glory has been reduced significantly, thankfully), and 5th Edition changed the defeated enemy Glory calculation completely (EDIT: Apparently I misremembered, see below.). So you should make up your mind which you wish to use, and then do it consistently. If you go with 5th Edition, human opponents ought to be worth the skills they use in combat + 1% of their Glory, IIRC. Commoners ought to have very little in the way of Glory, so easier to just ignore it. Saxon chieftains and thegns probably have some Glory, so you can eyeball it, depending on how notorious they are in your game. (EDIT: OK, nevermind. Apparently the above was Greg's own house rules on his webpage back in the day, and since 5.0 didn't have the Glory table in the book, he just told people to use the Glory calculation on his webpage. For some reason I thought it was the official rule, but I couldn't find it in 5.x rulebooks.) If you go with 4th Edition, then, sure, look up a roughly equivalent knight in skills and give Glory accordingly, downgrading it a bit if it was just a regular Saxon Warrior (i.e. Raider), instead of a noble thegn or a chieftain.

Divide. After all, it is much more glorious if you rescue the maiden single-handedly. You can take this to ad absurdum and ask if killing a panther or some such is worthy 100 Glory each, if 1000 knights are in the group doing it? I say obviously not. So the successful task glory ought to be divided, just like defeating an enemy is divided. Also: "Assuming cooperation and similar contributions, each participant receives an equal share of the Glory. The Gamemaster should reduce or eliminate the share of any character that held the others back or was uninvolved." It is clear that there is no point to this whole paragraph if the Task Glory is not divided up between the PKs normally.

Seconded. After all, you have Counts named Roderick and Robert anyway.

UTHER, p. 80: "Some titles given here appear as “abbot(-bishop).” The leader’s title is “abbot,” and the -bishop part indicates that they also have the power to make new priests, while most of the abbots do not."

Yes, Rhain. And while Russet Monks are supposed to be poor, it is not always the case. See UTHER p. 80: "Each abbey is independent of the others, and some tend to the poor while others tend to the nobles." Given that Rhain's monastery is right there at the Count's main seat, I would not put it past him to be a suave politician and more concerned with the needs of this world than the next, and dress in fine robes paid for by the income of his monastery. You could even read the table in p. 79 to mean that he doesn't need to contribute any knights at all (although I read it just as a rounding of the eschille number), which would leave him with even more money to spend on looking the part. Can't let those black brothers of Ambrius to make us look shabby, after all!

Yes, each Abbot is pretty much their own bishop, too. Like @Atgxtg said, the British (Celtic) Christianity is much more localized and tied to the local community than the Roman Christianity. EDIT: Mind you, there are plenty of accounts of not only the feudal nobles feuding with bishops, but abbots and bishops feuding against one another, too. It was pretty common for a bishop to try and be the superior to all the abbeys and such in his bishopric, while the abbots, especially the richer ones, tried to stay independent of the local bishop and be beholden directly to the pope instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemption_(canon_law)

Happy to help. Well, it is helpful on this side, too, since it is showing where the rules could do with a bit of clarification, and correcting some errors or omissions that might have crept in. (Disclaimer: While I worked with Greg on many of the products, especially the landholding side of things, I am not a Chaosium employee nor empowered to make any official announcements on their behalf. But I figure I can speak up on "this is the way it is supposed to work".) Besides, for each rules question, I am sure that there are at least a dozen or so people going: "Oh so that is the way it was supposed to work? Never stopped to think about it." So it is helpful for them, too. Of course there are also plenty of questions where there are simply no easy or canonical answers.

Correct. Correct. You got it, and it is pretty much as explicit as it can be in English. Now an enumerated list like you provided before (1. Surplus food, and 2. Free clerical advisor.) would make it even more explicit. Note that not all British Abbeys a) have the excess or b) return it to the estate. They MAY be endowed with extra and they MAY pay it back to the estate. It is case by case bases, and is more of a little local oddity than anything else. I don't see any reason a Pagan Abbey could not do likewise, but granted, those are much more rare in Logres. As for Roman Abbeys, I think the point there is that since they are much more tied to the church hierarchy, such excess money might go up the chain of command or be jealously hoarded by the Abbot. Remember also that in the case of the British Abbeys, often the Abbot is the son or a brother or an uncle of the current estate holder, so they have a familial motive to help the estate out. This is likely not the case with the other two options. Wrong. This free clerical advisor replaces the Chaplain (whose upkeep is £1, see page 38 Court Expense), and that is where the extra £1 Discretionary Funds comes from (you don't have to pay for a Chaplain). The monastery doesn't suddenly pay you £1 extra simply because you accept one of their monks into your household! I admit, this could definitely been stated more explicitly, but that is the intent: instead of you paying for the chaplain, you accept a monk as your clerical advisor, and the abbey pays for his upkeep. The Abbey benefits from having 'their guy' whispering advice to the estate holder, and the estate holder gains a small monetary benefit from not having to pay for the upkeep. Win-win. Whereas if there was another guy who is the actual confidant and advisor and the monk is just an extra guy, there is much less influence that the Abbey would get, and hence less incentive for them to do this. Especially since they'd have to pay for the 2nd Chaplain AND pay an extra £1, too! Where are they going to get that extra £1? So excluding the bits that make them special, aren't they the same? Russet Monks are special, since they are British Christians and have that Lot repair ability. Also, you can see that all three priest types have a slightly different set of skills that you can pick from. So it does matter which Abbey (and hence Clerical advisor/Chaplain) you pick. For example, if you are a Pagan, do you want a Roman Christian Chaplain (Black Monk) for free or a Pagan Priest, even if you have to pay the Pagan's upkeep? Roleplaying!