Uqbarian

Yeah, I know it's a passion and I'm not planning on making it a penalty -- it's more just that I had a mental blank on relevant plot ideas for a moment. Thanks for the suggestions!

Thanks, folks! I'm thinking on the mundane side, but I'll look up those adventures too. We're in the Uther period. A shopping trip to London could be an adventure in itself, so I might try that.

So, I have a PK who rolled a Love (Wife) of 16. Does anyone have suggestions for plotlines/scenarios that can make use of this? There's always the old villain-abducts-wife routine, and also enemies of the PK accusing the wife of something awful, but I'm trying to come up with something a bit less obvious.

8 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Is a 6th edition coming out anytime soon?

Apparently it's being worked on, but Chaosium haven't made an official announcement about dates.

Expanding on Morien's point, I think the manors that Roderick holds directly (his demesne manors) won't normally have knights present. They'd be managed by a bailiff at each manor or equivalent, reporting to Roderick's seneschal. The people living at them would be more or less the usual manorial staff minus a knight and family.

(If I'm reading Book of the Warlord correctly, a single steward is enough for outlier holdings within a single county, and for the county that contains the caput major the steward's duties are folded into those of the seneschal. For that many manors, I'd be tempted to throw in a few stewards as middle managers between the bailiffs and the seneschal, though, with each steward doing a circuit through about a dozen manors.)

For what it's worth, the 5.2 rulebook mentions this on page 109 under "Crossbow": "Knights generally scorn the use of crossbows in combat, although some may welcome their use in hunting (only!)."

(Presumably those knights who do use them in hunting also train up their crossbow skill.)

19 hours ago, sirlarkins said:

Yes! Right now the plan is to release the Book of Salisbury as part of a larger Resource Pack that will include a GM screen and some other materials, similar to the Runequest "GM Screen Pack". Book of Castles will be a standalone release; Matt Ryan (who did the Castle of the Kite illustration for the "Quest of the Red Blade" scenario) is working on diagrams and floor plans even as we speak.

Hooray! Thanks for that information.

Are the Book of Castles and/or the Book of Salisbury still in the pipeline?

On 4/9/2020 at 10:04 AM, Atgxtg said:

Historically, it was frowned upon to take on a close relative as a squire, as people thought that the knight would be too soft on his kinsmen, but that's another issue.

From what I've read, I get the impression (at least for high medieval France and England) that that concern was mainly on the father's side. E.g., it was not usual for a boy to be sent to his paternal uncle's household than to his maternal uncle's, but the latter was relatively common.

And on the other hand, in Chaucer we have a knight and squire who are father and son. (I don't think it's commented on as particularly unusual within the text, but I could be wrong.)

For the Pendragon period, it's also worth considering the strong traditional relationship in ancient and medieval Celtic societies between mother's brothers and sister's sons. (Some of this comes through with Arthur and Gawaine, for example.)

3 hours ago, Morien said:

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.)

Thanks.

3 hours ago, Morien said:

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.

Yep, something like that would be easier to follow.

10 hours ago, Morien said:

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.)

If I've understood the logic of the books, the social status isn't a hard line, right? As in, some lady wife replacements could conceivably be commoners, and some overseers of bailiffs could be esquires, as long as a commoner is never placed higher than an esquire in a particular reporting line.

(This struck me also because Book of the Warlord mentions knightly stewards for large outliers or other significant parcels -- Sir Blains, Steward of Levcomagus, is presumably an example of this type. Obviously that's way beyond the manorial scale, though.)

19 hours ago, creativehum said:

Sincere question to most of the posters here:

When I see information like that in the quote above Ihave no idea what I would do with it.

But many people here are obviously familiar with the numbers, have thought about the numbers. I'm curious: What do you do with this information in play? How does it help? (I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm asking how, because my imagination can't cough something up.)

How do the Player Knights interact with it? Is it for battles?

Is it required for certain types of KAP campaigns? And so on. 

Very curious about how this level of detail is utilized in play.

Thanks!

For me, the numbers (and the material around them) help me get an idea of the big picture of Logres and the interests of Uther and his barons, as well as giving me a range of benchmarks for things like how valuable a particular gift is. If, say, the PKs start a feud with Sir Staterius of Thornbush, I have a pretty good idea of what resources he has, and if they've annoyed some other minor baron, Staterius still provides a useful model.

The economic (and political-legal) details look particularly useful for the Anarchy (if my game ever gets there!), and more generally if any of the PKs become estate holders or otherwise have reason to be interested in high-level politics and military decision making.

15 hours ago, KungFuFenris said:

Urgh. If ever there was a time to desire Book of Salisbury...

Does anyone know how there's so much income in Swans as compared to the rest of the hundreds?

I'm currently trying to get an overview of the Vassal Knights in Salisbury, to actually have an NPC List. But, damn if it is not difficult.

Swans Hundred provides 66.6L to Sir Staterius in BotW. For the Salisbury hundreds held by Count Roderick, I get an average of 60.52L. (This count doesn't include the free manor of Ebble (14.6L) or the fee farm of Elmstump Hundred (46.5L?).) They range from Vagon at 22.7L to Thorngate at 102.1L, so the income of Swans looks reasonable to me.

(There's also the wrinkle that these values may not always be for the whole hundred. For example, the hundreds 'held' by Count Roderick may still contain pockets held by other lords. FWIW, Stafford had a preview draft of Swans for the Book of Salisbury up on his old site which had Swans at a total render of 97L, with 72.8L belonging to Staterius or his vassals. Something similar could explain the low value of Vagon Hundred.)

EDIT: Re Salisbury NPCs, I think we have names for about a dozen senior/notable knights, but we don't know for sure which of them are vassals and which are household knights.

35 minutes ago, creativehum said:

I'm more than content with this summary. I needed a ballpark to get me going, and this will do. Thanks all. 

• 150 manors.
• The count has 90.
• 20 belong to knights and their families, including the PCs, making them, indeed, important families in Salisbury. (The relative importance of the Player Knights is why I asked about this, so I've got my answer.
• And another 40-50 controlled by other lords, some outside of Salisbury. 

Also, I really like Krijger's map. I downloaded it a while back and plan to print it on a large board for my game.

I'm going with similar figures in my game, except about 30 vassal manors -- 20 single-manor grants (for the potential PK manors), half a dozen gifts/grants for officers, and a couple of bannerets. 

There's no need to assume the 20 potential PK manors are all held at the same level, of course; ones that don't go to PKs can be assigned to officers and/or bannerets, keeping to 20 manors held by Salisbury's vassals within Salisbury county.

Another benchmark from BotW is that Salisbury has subinfeudated 264 libras' worth, so about 26 manors. Again, not all of those have to be in Salisbury, of course. 

7 hours ago, Morien said:

In our campaign? 120 or so, named and numbered from Thijs' fine map (which I posted in this thread: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/10085-spoiler-maps-based-on-the-gpc-and-others/page/3/#comments ), which was based on the old 'x marks the spot' manorial map (KAP 5.2, p. 78). And yes, I don't care that it contradicts BotW. A fine map is worth more to me than the intricacies of the intertwined baronies in BotW...

The version of this on Stafford's old Pendragon site noted that there were another 30 or so manors not shown on the map, which would fit with your estimate of 150.

Try Book of the Warlord, page 103.

EDIT: There's also a post by Morien from the old forum archived here that could be useful (designed for after Lindsey, but easy enough to adapt).

15 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

This was often only allowed if she was too old to have children, unfortunately.

True, that.

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Parishes usually have several manors within them.

Indeed, though it seems unlikely that one parish would cover all of the possible player manors.

18 hours ago, Morien said:

By RAW, it would only be Mom if she is already thrice widowed. BotEnt: "No woman can be forced to marry a fourth time," and it is highlighted as official errata to KAP 5.1. Until then, the Mom becomes a ward of the liege lord as well. As I said previously, if the Mom is alive, there is a good chance (especially if she is still in childbearing age) that the liege would marry her off quickly to a trusted household knight. Thus rewarding the household knight with a possibility that if the PK snuffs it, the household knight's children might inherit instead (since the Mom is an heiress in this case, as unlikely as that is for all PKs). If the Mom remarries, then it is likely that she and the new husband would be living at the manor and taking care of it.

That being said, even if the Mom is not remarried to someone, it is possible that the liege would let her to continue to look after the manor. It is no skin off his nose, and it would probably ensure that the manor gets more personal attention. However, there are a lot of examples (and story potential) in having the manor entrusted to someone else, who either wants to try and keep it for himself, or is trying to squeeze every potential profit out of the manor before the PK inherits. Such as selling off some of the flocks and so forth, which can then lead to court cases, feuding, etc. That is, if you wish to do it.

I don't think this is mentioned in the rules, but just to add another line of possible backstories, there was the real-world possibility of a widow paying a fine to her guardian so she could marry her own choice of husband, or even to not marry at all.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

That's not quite correct: Per "Fight a Leader", BoB 2nd edition page 78:

• First Round: Players fight bodyguards per the normal unit results.
• Extended Melee Phase 1: Player fight remaining bodyguard plus additional guards equal to the number of characters still up.. If this is a Battalion Commander he counts as one of those men buy he may sit back, or he  may attempt to escape (Which I think is treated like the Run Away Maneuver) instead of fighting, trusting to his guards to hold of the player knights.

(emphasis added) Thanks! Treating it like Running Away makes perfect sense.

Thanks also, Tizun Thane!

Say you're using the Book of Battle rules and the players get an opportunity to fight an enemy leader (page 78), but the leader decides to escape. How do the players stop him from escaping? Is it just something like using the rules for attacking multiple opponents (to represent fighting past a bodyguard to engage the leader)?

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, once the printing press comes out book prices drop by something like 80%. So basically 1d per page at that point. So the 126 books @ £113 would have been something like £565  in the old days.

Even before that, books would tend to cost significantly less by the beginning of the thirteenth century than they did at the end of the eleventh, as lay literacy increased, universities emerged with associated book trades, and the relative importance of scriptoria declined. Increased use of paper also lowered prices for cheap books well before printing.

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Still it's hard to correlate that to Pendragon as historical prices varied considerably over several centuries, and Pendragon uses an approximation for most things.

Definitely!

9 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I went with £20+ for a couple of reasons.

First off, it matches the price of the magnificent sword and  saddle in the Book of Sires Luck Table. Those give a +1 to the relevant skill when used, all the time, whereas the books gave a +3, but required a read roll and time to  prepare, so I figure the value would balance out.

Secondly, according to KAP 5.2  the standard cost to get something written or copied is 5d per page, and 25d per illuminated page. That works out to £1 per 48 pages (we could round to 50 pages), and that's without any binding or cover, nor any illumination. So £20 can pay for a Clerk, a leather cover, and about 200-900 sheets of hand written vellum, depending on the amount of illumination, and for any pages that got ruined during the copying process.

Yep, I got that first part, and the second part makes sense (but also allows for something closer to £5 for a small non-illuminated book).

9 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

As far a real world Books go, I've read that a relatively inexpensive book, a  Latin psalter,  in ther 12th century went for about  53 shillings ( about £2 ½) but that was also about the same price as a warhorse, as well as the typical wage for a laborer.

Neat! That's also when a coat of mail might cost 100 shillings, going by Hodges's list. (Hodges also mentions a set of 126 books going for 113 pounds in 1397, but prices would tend be lower then, though he doesn't mention what sort of books these were.)

On 10/21/2019 at 8:16 AM, SaxBasilisk said:

I have a character in my game who has expressed a desire to build a small library for her knight. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Books are rare at the GPC's beginning. Someone might be able to find a few for sale in London, and it might be possible to copy others from the collection of a monastery or a prominent Roman urban family. Such copying might take one year and cost about 2-3 Libra (given that the book gives 5d. for copying a page, and assuming these pages are pretty big).

Books available are mostly Christian sacred texts, liturgies, and devotional works (Religion (Christian)). Other possible works may include those of Caesar (Battle), Cicero (Oratory), or Virgil (Compose), or treatises covering other topics such as Falconry.

During the Winter Phase, the owner of books may choose one in their collection to study. If successful on a Read (Latin) check, the character gains a check in both Read (Latin) and the skill related to the book's topic (provided that skill is below 15).

Any thoughts on this? 

I have a literate knight in my game, and I've been thinking similar thoughts. I like your take on the training use. Prices might be a bit higher, using the given copying rate -- a book would probably have something like 200 pages at least,* so you'd theoretically be looking at 4+ libra. That seems a bit high to me, particularly as that's for non-illuminated books, but I guess it can work for the early period (EDIT: though 2-3 libra also seems fine to me). I'd bring costs down a lot (maybe 50%) after the Conquest period (reflecting twelfth- and thirteenth-century developments). I can see why Atgxtg went with £20+, but I would use that sort of price for heavily illuminated works.

The most common books in the early period would be gospels (containing one to four of the gospels) and psalters (containg the Book of Psalms), both of which would also often include extra material such as liturgical calendars, glossaries or litanies. A portable single-volume Bible would actually be rare before the thirteenth century. Books of hours are another thirteenth-century development.

(I think the rulebook overstates medieval illiteracy somewhat. There's evidence that literacy was not uncommon among knights and barons, even from the 11th century, though there would also have been a broader range of competencies than we're accustomed to think of.)

*I'm thinking of something like the Stonyhurst Gospel, an 8th-century gospel book that contains the Gospel of John in 188 pages. It's in a very small format, but with a larger format you'd be more likely to include more than one gospel.

4 hours ago, jmberry1s said:

Renn was an invention of Stafford's as far as I know, an ancestor of the equally invented Roderick (I want to say grandfather, but I can't remember the exact relation).

Thanks!

Yep, I'd probably go with Ambrosius refurbishing it.

I wish there were more clues as to who Renn might have been, though. The closest name I can think of is Brennius.