Morien

Anglo-Normans were not that bad. It is once the conflict became religious and political (the Tudors and then the Stuarts) that things really took a turn for the worse. Arthur invades in support of King of Leinster. Basically bops the High King of Ireland on the nose and tells him to behave, before returning to Logres. You could easily drop the speculative grants out of it and then it would be just the Irish Kings fighting amongst themselves, possibly with Cymric mercenary knights, as already happens in the 520s.

Pretty much in agreement, although a lot depends on the GM, too. Anarchy is especially fun since it gives much more freedom for the PKs to influence alliances etc. And while the grand outline us there, nothing says that the details can't vary. I disliked the Kay downfall as well so in our old campaign, I didn't even introduce Arthur's sons (even Mordred's true parentage remained unknown). Kay died during the Grail Quest, which allowed me to run some more warfare in France as the result.

The KAP Aquitanian nobility is Visigothic, but, IMHO, probably bilingual with the local dialect of Vulgar Latin. EDIT: As other posters have mentioned, language skills don't exist anymore in KAP. They did in 1st Edition, if I recall correctly, but Greg took them out, stating that they were a hindrance to the game play and counter to the sources where people converse easily with knights from all over Europe and even beyond.

Castle of Fawlty Towers might be an alternative name.

Check Unhelmetted, after Grappling rules in KAP 5.2, IIRC. I don't remember the page number off the top of my head. @Wolfpack Six I slightly misremembered. Unhelmed, p. 143.

I probably would have been a bit harsher, taking away the whole ransom. Leaving Aldwyn with the Glory but no material benefit for having disobeyed the order to retreat. But YPWV.

Oh, my players are into investment for that extra free income. But servitium debitum in the next generation is increased whether they want it to be or not, so they end up with an extra footsoldier anyway. Also, if I were more draconian about the minimum garrison requirements, they would certainly keep a larger garrison since they are downright paranoid about building fortifications. I wonder why. 😁

I admit that I have not used Pagan Shores for much, mainly to just get some background information when the PKs have interacted with Leinster, participating in one battle between Leinster and the High King. As people have pointed out, Ireland might be a fertile ground to take the campaign to a slightly different path, by allowing the PKs to take the place of the conquering Anglo-Normans / Cymric knights in GPC. The movie, The War Lord, might work wonderfully in such a setting, too, with its Pagan overtones and strife between the peasants and the occupying foreigners.

Like Atgxtg, I have not found this to be an issue. The Players have naturally been seeding loot money into Investments, so their £10 manors with 1 knight + 3 footsoldiers are going to look more like £12 manors with 1 knight + 5 footsoldiers in the next generation. And so forth. As for where that garrison footsoldier goes, the liege is in hock for it for the King for 40 days per year, and I would assume that the same applies for the PK vassals' garrison footsoldiers, via the liege. After that period is done (and it is likely rotated shift so that not all garrison troops are called at the same time, so that the royal castles remain manned throughout the year), it does mean that most of the garrison troops are actually chilling at their lord's place (the PK's manor, in the case of most of the PK mesnie). So they ought to be available for defense most of the time, and in desperate need, I would imagine that they might even get called up for the field army, although that would be extenuating circumstances. (Also, I assume this "that comes from a major" is some spellchecker error? I couldn't quite follow what you meant by it.)

Historically? It varied with time, location and instance. Pendragon's 1to2 is high, definitely, and would be more appropriate for a raiding expedition if the footmen were mounted infantry. But KAP is supposed to be about knights. Also I think that the idea was that the king would be hiring some mercs to round off the ranks, especially archers and armored infantry. Here is an example of Battle of Bouvines, where the ratios were more like 1:3 and 1:5 respectively. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bouvines

Each £10 (an average manor) pays for 1 knight and 2 foot soldiers for the army, plus 1 garrison footman. Hence 1 knight + 3 foot soldiers. Atgxtg was talking about just the army part.

Pretty much, yes. (Although in our campaign, the Steward of Levcomagus is called the Praetor of Levcomagus and it is an inheritable title rather than just an office.) My point was more that it would be clearer, job title wise, if Steward = the person in overall charge of the manor, and this person could be the Lady Wife or a hireling (usually esquire, but could be a respected commoner in some cases or even a knight in the case of estate level outliers). And Bailiff = the person in charge of the manorial (outdoors) staff. Chief Bailiff looking after a bunch of bailiffs, and Chief Steward = Seneschal looking after a bunch of stewards and chief bailiffs.

Yes. They'd also need to hire a household knight (relatives and friends of friends or former squires could be good choices, if they have been knighted). This has already been accounted for in the '1 manor pays for 1 knight and 3 footmen' part, so they are left with 2 libra total per year for discretionary funds. It would be very rare for them to get vassal knights of their own, since they'd pretty much have to have like estates to do this, by RAW. However, my players like to let their household knights marry (especially if the hhk is a younger brother or a cousin) a lady who will take care of the stewardship, and then the new couple is pretty much a vassal knight household in almost all but name. Sure, their children won't inherit it, but this does provide some spares if it was a younger brother.

Happy to help!

I know what it says, I was the one who revised it to bring it into conformity with Book of the Warlord. (Alas, I will admit that there are a couple of little errata points that slipped through the cracks.) What you need to keep in mind is that the Book of the Estate main text is written with Estates (£30 - £100 or so, averaging around £50) in mind. A humble £10 manor consolidates these various positions under fewer positions. Unfortunately, we were not quite as clear as we could have been as to the chain of command, but it goes like this: At the very top, is of course the Lord Knight himself. But he seldom concerns himself with the details: it is a well-run household when he doesn't even have to order people around since everyone is already doing what he would have ordered them to do. Besides, he is away on war or at court or on an adventure often enough anyway. The day-to-day leadership is provided by the Lady Wife, or in her absence, an esquire Steward. (The Knight's still living Lady Mother might also be possible.) Bailiff takes care of the day-to-day outdoors staff, i.e. bullying the peasants & looking after the production. When the estate grows, more bailiffs are needed to keep the rascals in line, and then you start needing another layer of management to oversee the bailiffs, too. This is where the commoner Stewards come in. Finally, the whole operation grows enough that it is seemly to have another knight paying some attention too, and this person gets the title of a Seneschal. However, it is the commoner Steward and bailiffs who are doing the actual day-to-day work. However, it should be noted and underscored that it is the Lady Wife (or the esquire steward in small manors or the Seneschal in big estates) who is actually making the big picture decisions. With the input from the practical, experienced men of the dirt, one would hope. The Lady Wife (or the esquire Steward, or the Lady Mother) oversees the indoor staff herself. In a small manor, this is not especially time consuming. However, as we move to bigger estates, the staff swells and so does the complexity. It becomes a full time job, so a majordomo is appointed to take this task off the Lady Wife, who can then again focus on the big picture rather than commanding each individual maid herself (she can, if she wants to, but that is inefficient). Still, the Majordomo takes his orders from the Lady Wife (or the esquire Steward, or the Seneschal). And of course, the Lord Knight himself. (While historically, Majordomo and Steward and Seneschal have been used interchangeably at times, in KAP we don't do that.) One source of confusion here is that there are two Stewards here: there are the esquire stewards, who are replacements for the Lady Wife, and occupy that overall leadership role (in smaller estates and more distant outliers). And then there are the commoner stewards, who are more like overseers for the bailiffs. And of course finally the knight Seneschals, who exist even if the Lady Wives do, to take over that workload from the lady. (EDIT: On hindsight, it would have been better to call the commoner stewards 'chief bailiffs' instead, and save the steward term solely for the esquires who are occupying the overall leadership role in the place of the Lady.) So the command tree goes like this: Crops/Production: (Knight ->) Lady Wife / esquire Steward or knight Seneschal (-> knight Seneschal -> commoner steward) -> bailiff -> manorial ('outdoor', production) staff & peasants Servant Staff: (Knight ->) Lady Wife / esquire Steward or knight Seneschal (-> Majordomo ) -> department heads (possibly with Butler as primus inter pares) -> their underlings (household / 'indoors' staff) (And this is still ignoring the Constable, who would be in charge of the horse herds and stable staff, and possibly in his own turf war with the knight Seneschal.)

It isn't. See below. Yes, both the steward and the majordomo roles are managed by the lady of the manor in smaller households. Or in the absence of the lady (unmarried knight), then the steward is also taking care of the majordomo duties. But they are not synonyms. A majordomo (once the management of the household servants becomes a full time job) would not be doing the steward's duties. Look, the best modern analogue I can give is that imagine that you are a proprietor of a small bed&breakfast establishment. You greet the guests, you clean, you cook, you provide information on the town and transport, recommend sights and restaurants, and fix/repair any problems. You are a receptionist, house cleaning, cook, consierge/tour guide and handyman all rolled up in one. But you wouldn't say that the term handyman would describe all that you do. Whereas in a hotel, all of these would be different jobs for different people, probably multiple ones in several shifts. At which point you would start having middle management as well (which majordomos are, in a way). So in a bigger estate, the chain of command would go that the steward (or the wife) would oversee the whole estate, including outdoors and indoors, with the majordomo as the head of the servant staff. Since the steward/wife no longer has time to oversee all the nitty-gritty details, they would do the big picture: "Sir Such-and-such is arriving with 6 men and his wife tomorrow. They will stay for 3 days. Make sure that the guest room is ready and notify the cook that there will be more mouths to feed." And then the majordomo would ensure that the household would be ready to receive the guests. As well as ensure that the daily routine would still be going, that the lord's fireplace/brazier is lit up in the morning so that the room will not be freezingly cold during winter mornings when his lordship gets up from the bed, etc. Meanwhile, the steward/wife might get to talking with the miller about the fact that the millrace is getting silted up, so some peasants should be detailed to dredge the thing open again... etc.

You are mixing a steward with a bailiff, I reckon. In a normal knightly manor, it is the wife of the knight who oversees the manor as the whole. If the knight is unmarried, then he typically hires an esquire steward to oversee things for him so that he can focus on fighting and war instead of boring stewardship. Bailiff is out there on the fields yelling at fellow peasants to plow straight damnyoureyes while stewards and ladies are upper management. So in a typical manor, you generally have either a lady wife OR a steward. Very seldom both.

I agree, it seems much more playable to do it like: "The dogs force an enemy horseman roll Horsemanship-10. If they fail, then the owner of the dogs gets +5 modifier to the opposed melee roll." That being said, I would rather make it -5 to the rider's melee skill instead. Since it is likely that the rider is a PK rather than vice versa, it is much easier to let the Player worry about the modifier than trying to recall which of the NPCs' dogs distracted their PK... Also, it makes criticals less likely (if the enemy skill is 16+), which is also something I like.

Fully agreed. Agree to disagree, when we are talking about knightly standard of living. I could see penalties on survival and perhaps a minor penalty on childbirth if it drops all the way to Impoverished (you are living on peasant fare at that point, unless you do something about it, and the chargers are definitely going to get the chop, as there is no way you can keep your charger going on grass alone: sell your non-essential horses pronto, and beg, steal or borrow some more provisions!). Poor is still double that, so I would be hesitant to give penalties on survival and childbirth, although I could see a charger starting to suffer a bit. Granted, thanks to the BotE correction on the survival, the child survival bonuses do much less nowadays, muahahaha! Similarly, I would be hesitant to mess with either survival or childbirth in higher standards of living. Sure, when we start talking about Barons and Kings, maybe they could get some small bonus, but a mere +50% or even +100% on the standard knight would be just upgrading the already perfectly adequate fare and clothing into fancier stuff. To be honest, rather than going through the route of the Standard of Living, I would be more inclined to look at Entourage members. As in, hire a full time professional nanny (£1) per child to be their constant, watchful companion, and keep (some) accidents from happening. Medieval medicine being what it is, I am not sure that having a medical doctor present prescribing leeches on a child would do any good, more likely the opposite! (One of the leading causes of death by childbirth in the early 19th century was doctors not washing their hands between autopsies and childbirth, with the fateful result of causing infection on the new mothers; much better to have a midwife! https://www.upworthy.com/women-were-dying-from-childbirth-at-hospitals-this-19th-century-doctor-figured-out-why Of course, autopsies were not permitted by the medieval church, but you could easily imagine a doctor coming from treating a sick person and not having changed clothes or washed for weeks and weeks...) Of course, if magic is common in your campaign, maybe there is a possibility of getting some local wise woman mix some potions, or getting a chapter of nuns or monks sing prayers for your child's health, for a small fee (£1 per year per child?), granting some protection against illnesses? And I could see potions or divine help giving some bonus to childbirth, too. (Pagans, remember the Beltaine fires, although make sure that you don't lose track of your spouse!)

Does not follow. The Baron could easily have a larger bedroom than a vassal knight and hence more space to be heated. Besides, as I said later, if we are focusing the inquiry on what happens to a vassal knight PK who upgrades from Ordinary to Rich for one year, this ought to not involve any changes to the size of his bedroom, nor even the tapestries (which would be treasure, not SoL). Partly disagreed, as your later contention about processed foods indicates as well. See for instance this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7148534.stm Notice specifically the point about the nobles often overindulging, even though the link is mainly focused on the peasants' food. (I presume, assuming good circumstances rather than famine conditions.) Now the medieval people did not appreciate all the vitamins and things we take for granted, so I would agree that the noble diets might be badly out of whack, which is part what I am arguing, actually. See more about the criticism of the medieval nobles' diets here (the opening paragraph): http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-food/medieval-diet.htm And some more here: https://www.bl.uk/the-middle-ages/articles/the-medieval-diet# Alas, I don't have a table of this information, and it would take a bunch of examples to get good statistics out of it. Furthermore, the best evidence is obviously for higher nobles and royalty. Often times the children who die young are dropped out of the chronicles, too, making child survival even harder. Still, that being said, it seems that there is a lot of variation. You can take William Marshal with his 10 kids (all survived) and contrast his sons' luck (childless, as far as legitimate marriages go; granted, they seem all have married very late in life and died relatively soon after their marriages, within several years) with his daughters (generally several children). Or we can look at King Philip II of France, who had five children from two of his wives (3 survived, twin boys died within days of birth). These are naturally just some individual examples, and William Marshal and his kids were on the top tier of England's nobility. William's father John Marshal (nee FitzGilbert) had two sons by his first wife and four sons from the second, as well as three daughters. Total 9 children. But he probably ranked as a baron in KAP if not in history, since he had two castles and some lands under his command. Indeed, most of the examples that can easily be found focus on baronial or regal families, not knights. But the overall impression is that there is more variance between the individual's number of issue within the class, than between classes themselves.

Yes in comparison to a starving poor serf living in a rickety hut and unable to afford firewood or food for his children. But this is a knightly family we are talking about, and minor differences (up to x2) in money spent. When it comes to the diet, the amount of calories is not an issue, and one could argue that by increasing the price of foods (more meat, sweet stuff, more potent wine), you are actually making the diet less healthy. Gout was a rich man's disease, and being fat was if not a status symbol (as the knights were expected to be physically fit), something associated with wealth as poor people would not have the means nor the leisure to pile on the pounds. As a comparison, assuming that you are a healthy, and reasonably well-to-do individual (i.e. you don't have to worry about your monthly food bill), just how much better your diet is if you buy twice the amount of meat that you currently do, and drop the green stuff and wholegrain bread in favor of sugared jam on white bread? Also, one could argue that a wooden hall would actually be better insulated than a stone one (freezing during late winter and long into the spring, stifling hot during late summer and into the autumn), and a healthier place to live, too. In any case, there wouldn't be a huge disparity between the room where a baron sleeps and a room where a vassal knight sleeps: the difference would be more in the price of the furnishings, rather than a difference in kind. And if we are looking at knights, the grade of maintenance does not include treasure like tapestries or expansion of the manorial hall, but consumables like clothing and food. Thus, the argument of the better living accommodations would not be valid, IMHO, in any case. Thus, I would argue that the step up from an ordinary knight to a rich knight, even to a superlative knight, would not markedly change the lifespan expectancy of the children, nor the number of children.

As long as you get a bonus* for what you have spent for your standard of living, too. I mean, I'd be a bit miffed if I am spending £15 per year (extra £9) on living the life and get no bonus for it but someone can drop £1 in and get a bonus. * As people might know, I am solidly against childbirth & survival modifiers for the grade of maintenance, and have argued that it should be more of a social peacocking thing: show your status and importance via conspicuous displays of wealth. Hence my argument is that SoL should be giving finer clothing, fancier food at the table and bonuses for social interaction & glory.

On reflection, I recognize that there is an incentive to make this easy enough that the players might actually spend some money on tarting themselves up. The only problem is that since the Gems are obviously better (no wear and tear, usable as fungible treasure), the PKs will dress up in rags and pile on the bling. One option would be to price them differently: Jewelry goes up in price as x2, but clothing might go up with a flat rate of, say, £2. So you'd get instead: £1, £2, £4, £6, £8 and, a bit bigger jump, £12 for +5 for clothing. While you would have to spend £32 in Jewelry to get the same bonus. Or you could go with x2 for clothing (and hence £32 for +5), but go x4 for jewelry (£4 +1, £16 +2, £64 +3, £256 +4, £1024 +5). That way, Jewelry is better, but much more of it is required for the higher bonus. Incidentally, the latter assumes that each knight would have £1 worth of bling and hence be at 0. If £1 bling already buys +1 and 0 is 0, then the top tier would be 'only' £256. Not even a baron's ransom. I think I like that latest option: the humble knight will probably go for some bronze or silver decorations on the belt buckle, clasp on the cloak, fittings on the hilt of the sword and/or scabbard... While the higher nobility will start piling on necklaces/chains, big rings with gemstones, etc. I would definitely be giving Outrageous Consumption Glory for spending money on perishables like clothing. Probably not for Jewelry... or at least at a diminished rate, using the old 1 Glory per £1 up to £10, and then 1 Glory per £10.

If you read my post, you can see that I did make this point explicitly. That the whole clothing allowance would be for the wardrobe, not individual dresses. However, if you want the PKs to be able to get higher bonuses, then yes, you could have them save their fanciest clothing for that single event and get the full bonus for it instead. And the 'seen that' factor could simply be -1 for every event after the first one, which would explain why the Queen, who hosts numerous feasts per year, has several fine dresses while a knight's lady might do with one for the Pentecostal feast.

Yep. And that is why in GPC Gorlois and Uther start off as enemies, whereas in HRB, they were friends/allies. It was Gorlois who encouraged Uther to charge the victorious Saxons at Mt. Damen, not Merlin, and the Ygraine incident happens in the following Easter Court. Granted, Excalibur is in good company, since Le Morte starts off with Gorlois and Uther antagonistic as well.