Rootless PCs?

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, gochie said:

if you don't even own a farm

No one "owns" a farm outside of a clan, temple, or tribe, and their rights to the land are based on their occupation/possession of the land. If you leave, you presumably weaken the clan as you are not there to help protect and defend the clan's land against enemies. The clan could not rely on you, therefore I think they would consider you at best unreliable.

[gochie]

23 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

No one "owns" a farm outside of a clan, temple, or tribe, and their rights to the land are based on their occupation/possession of the land. If you leave, you presumably weaken the clan as you are not there to help protect and defend the clan's land against enemies. The clan could not rely on you, therefore I think they would consider you at best unreliable.

I think we're generally saying the same thing. If you don't take care of a land or a specific occupation that benefits the tribe/town/society you live in, they probably won't care if you leave for years at a time.

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

No one "owns" a farm outside of a clan, temple, or tribe, and their rights to the land are based on their occupation/possession of the land. If you leave, you presumably weaken the clan as you are not there to help protect and defend the clan's land against enemies. The clan could not rely on you, therefore I think they would consider you at best unreliable.

Well... being out fighting and coming back with loot to share also strengthens the clan. It's not as though people have a problem with Orlanth Adventurous dudes being away from the clan for extended periods - that's expected (possibly mandated) behaviour.

[Monty Lovering]

I'm actually developing Marcher County as an answer to this.

The idea is that after Silkinster the Thunderer completed the conquest of the Esulvari and captured Refuge, he instituted Marcher County as a buffer zone, given to those who could have and hold sicut regal (as kings) but still owning fealty to him and his successors. It's ripped off how the actual March was run between Wales and England. Apart from the Count, whom he appointed and would hold Knight's Fort, it was allowed for anyone to claim land, and if they could keep it provided they defended Heortland against raiders from the east.

After Belintar's rise, he kept the arrangement, as it was a convenient means of defence and an escape valve for those less suited to the more sedate life that depended upon Heortland as a sixth (and those Esulvari who were unaccepted by Heorlings but tired of caste restrictions after seeing their neighbours live without them).

Now it's an area of petty Barons with tenants (and the occasional bloody change of Baron) and freesteaders beholden to no lord unless summoned for the fyrd. There are Bandori Esulvari following traditional Aeolian ways, Heortlings as traditional in their worship as your average Sartarite, Peskalite tribes people, even some Praxians who stayed after their employ as mercenaries. But there are also communities where there has been intermarriage and where some families have blended ways, and where those who've not nevertheless get along well with others.

Thus PCs from there can be a wide mix of backgrounds, and coming from a very diverse and granular society where people of three of more clans may regard their allegiance to a Baron before their differences or before blood ties to others owing allegiance to another lord.

Being a murder hobo would be very risky though. Just because it's not as structured and hidebound (oh boy, I just figured out the etymology of that word) doesn't mean there are o consequences for acting like an outlaw. But it gives much scope to adventures within the March and for adventuring beyond the March (for example, to classic scenario packs).

I'm intending it to be set in 1610 but be usable in 1625 too.

[Bill the barbarian]

4 hours ago, Monty Lovering said:

I'm intending it to be set in 1610 but be usable in 1625 too.

Very interested, doing a little work in that period of time myself...

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Very interested, doing a little work in that period of time myself...

Nice, I'm preparing a campaign starting in 1611, centered on the Bachad tribe fleeing the Alda-Chur area and settling around Alone.