Rewards from King Uther

[stryker99]

The PKs managed to capture the warbanner of a Saxon king and earned great glory during the Uther period. I have been looking out for opportunities to elevate the PKs as they advance in their careers, earning new holdings and possibly vassal knights of their own. It seems like something like this should qualify, but I'm not sure exactly what to do.

If King Uther were to reward these heroes with new holdings where would they be and how mechanically would it work (I am using Book of the Estate)? Would I just award them a new manor in some county other than Salisbury and just hand wave +1 Librum income (and an additional plot for expansions)? Is there a list of manors Uther has in his back pocket to hand out as rewards? Could they then assign a family knight as lord of the new estate and make him a vassal if they were so inclined?

Any suggestions on how to help the PKs expand their holdings and standings is appreciated!

[Atgxtg]

Well first off this might be worth getting land, but are you sure you want it to come  directly from Uther? Doing so makes the PKs direct vassals of Uther, and would sort of override their obligation to Count Salisbury.You might  not want that. Then again you might. 

A good benchmark for if this is worth land or not is how much glory the PKs racked up during the battle,  as they shows how they did overall as opposed to just thier final act.

Next is that the  action might not be worth elevating everyone. It seems more likely that the unit leader might get promoted but the remaining PKs  would get one off rewards, such as armor, horses, fine weapons, treasure and so on. Lan d it a  big deal, and for any nobleman to hand about half dozen manors or so is a huge deal, especially when they can only give out about 20% of their total manors, and most of those have probably already been given away to knights.  Uther giving all the PKs manors  greatly restricts thew number of manors he has available to reward knights in the future. It's much m ore prudent for him to give one knight a manor and spend a hundred libra to so rewarding everyone else. 

 

Another option would be for their own liege lord (Count Salisbury) to award on e or more of the PKs manors, perhaps at Uther's urging. This is similar to above, and leaves open the possible of Uther adding in additional rewards, if he wants to. But the Count also would be hesitant of giving out a half dozen manors at once. 

 

My suggestion would be for one PK, either the Unit Leader the PK who did the best/most in the battle, to get landed for the capture of the Saxon King, and the other get one off rewards. Then, you could work  on marriages and other situations where the remaining PKs could get manors of their own. Especially if the wars have left lots of widows.

 

[stryker99]

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

My suggestion would be for one PK, either the Unit Leader the PK who did the best/most in the battle, to get landed for the capture of the Saxon King, and the other get one off rewards. Then, you could work  on marriages and other situations where the remaining PKs could get manors of their own. Especially if the wars have left lots of widows.

 

There were only 3 PKs involved at that point. I like the idea of having the reward come from Roderick at Uther's urging. I already had planned some treasure as reward, but the idea of whoever earned the most glory in the capture being awarded land in Salisbury is excellent. This keeps it closer to home, and limits the expansion and makes it special.

How mechanically does this work in BoE? Basically their estate is now income of 2 Librum instead of 1 and they now have two plots for expansion instead of 1?

How do PKs eventually get vassal knights of their own? The core rules cover this a lot, but I get the feeling it is extremely rare and the GPC would be better off if I avoid this...

[Morien]

2 minutes ago, stryker99 said:

How mechanically does this work in BoE? Basically their estate is now income of 2 Librum instead of 1 and they now have two plots for expansion instead of 1?

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.

2 minutes ago, stryker99 said:

How do PKs eventually get vassal knights of their own? The core rules cover this a lot, but I get the feeling it is extremely rare and the GPC would be better off if I avoid this...

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.

[Atgxtg]

9 hours ago, stryker99 said:

There were only 3 PKs involved at that point. I like the idea of having the reward come from Roderick at Uther's urging. I already had planned some treasure as reward, but the idea of whoever earned the most glory in the capture being awarded land in Salisbury is excellent. This keeps it closer to home, and limits the expansion and makes it special.

 

How mechanically does this work in BoE? Basically their estate is now income of 2 Librum instead of 1 and they now have two plots for expansion instead of 1?

THey would have two manors, each of which would provide about 10 income and require 9 upkeep. The major differences would usually be with their army. Each manor should provide 1 knight and 2 footmen to the PKs army (hence why they will need to hire another knight for thier army), so the net effect is that the PK would have another librum to spend, and a couple more footmen, and earn another 10 glory per year.

9 hours ago, stryker99 said:

How do PKs eventually get vassal knights of their own?

Generally by either taking on existing knights of knighting men themselves, and giving or granting them land.. The latter option is  frowned upon, more and more as time goes by, both because it steps on the privileges of the greater nobles, and because it's bad form  to create knights you cannot maintain. The first option is easy enough though, the PK just needs to find a knight who is free to swear fealty and  homage to the PK.

9 hours ago, stryker99 said:

The core rules cover this a lot, but I get the feeling it is extremely rare and the GPC would be better off if I avoid this...

Generally it is rare because the PK would  have to give  or worse, grant, a manor to the other knight to make him a vassal. Few knights are going to want to loose a manor to  make a vassal knight, and would instead probably prefer to make a household knight., since they don't normally have manors to spare. It can occasionally happen after years on loyal service, and/or when he vassal provides some special  benefits to make them worth it to the PK. 

 

[Username]

21 hours ago, Morien said:

1 manor pays for 1 knight and 3 footmen' part

Is this accurate? I thought it was as @Atgxtg said with it coming as one knight and two footmen. I always thought the numbers were a little small for the lands output especially in terms of the number of soldiers in later periods.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Username
Just as an aside, wasn't a 1/10 a more normal ratio for knights to foot soldiers.

[Morien]

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.

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Username said:

Just as an aside, wasn't a 1/10 a more normal ratio for knights to foot soldiers.

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

Edited December 29, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

12 hours ago, Username said:

Is this accurate? I thought it was as @Atgxtg said with it coming as one knight and two footmen. I always thought the numbers were a little small for the lands output especially in terms of the number of soldiers in later periods.

The third footman goes to the liege lord or the king (I forgot whom), and isn't at the manor. I ignored him to try and avoid confusing the issue, thereby  confusing the issue. 

[Username]

My bad, I thought you were both ignoring the Garrison. Makes sense. While on the subject, does anyone increase the manpower that comes from a major in the later periods? I was thinking about doing it. If you have, what was your experience, if you didn't, why not?

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, Username said:

My bad, I thought you were both ignoring the Garrison. Makes sense. While on the subject, does anyone increase the manpower that comes from a major in the later periods? I was thinking about doing it. If you have, what was your experience, if you didn't, why not?

I haven't gotten to the latter periods with Book of the Estate yet, but I suspect I won't be increasing the manpower requirements-mostly because my players tend to do that naturally, without any encouragement. Most of the landed PKs in my campaigns seem to try to get to 5 defenders for the manor in  order to get their maximum  DV from the fortifications.  So another man or t two appears to be a natural progression. 

And my PKs holdings have been relative raid free, baring a rivalry with a faerie knight over a bride.  I suspect they would have the biggest army they could afford, if they were getting raided more frequently.

[Morien]

11 hours ago, Username said:

My bad, I thought you were both ignoring the Garrison. Makes sense. While on the subject, does anyone increase the manpower that comes from a major in the later periods? I was thinking about doing it. If you have, what was your experience, if you didn't, why not?

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.)

Edited December 30, 2019 by Morien

[Username]

Ah, my players have spent it on a variety of things, but oddly enough, they've not been spending it on investments to improve income. That's probably it. They tend to like to form coalitions and engage in politics/warfare so there's that. Also, they never seem to think that a permanent footsoldier is worth the cost.

[Morien]

11 hours ago, Username said:

Also, they never seem to think that a permanent footsoldier is worth the cost.

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. 😁

[Username]

10 hours ago, Morien said:

they would certainly keep a larger garrison since they are downright paranoid about building fortifications. I wonder why. 😁

Mine are too! But they're usually plotting about how to get more land as a means to get more troops and then they only build a few fortifications. Probably less than they ought. Their big idea is to invade Cambria which they've been talking about for 30 in-game years now. Though that got put on indefinite hold after they were first shot by a longbow haha.

[Atgxtg]

On 1/1/2020 at 1:28 PM, Username said:

 Also, they never seem to think that a permanent footsoldier is worth the cost.

Wait until hey get raided and someone rides off with their treasure, spare armor, etc.

The key point s that it takes a certain number of defenders to keep the full DV of the fortification.

[SaxBasilisk]

As for what deeds qualify - for whatever it's worth, page 18 of The Book of the Estate gives Greg's ideas of what actions might be worth a promotion.