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Loyalty: Homage & Fealty


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Since the time of Book of Estate I thought to have understood the difference between Homage & Fealty...until now!

I used to think that tracking the 2 different passions was to be done only when you have multiple lords to answer, but maybe I was wrong!

 

WHAT I'VE DONE THUS FAR:

For single (Household or Vassal) Knight with 1 lord (usually Earl Roderick) I always counted just 1 single passion (Loyalty: Lord) since, without any relationship with other lords, there was no point in tracking differences.

When the Knights start having direct relationships with other lords (Maybe King Uther, maybe other lords where they get lands), I used to make a "Homage" passion for the higher ranking lord, and a "Fealty" passion for each of the other minor lords.

 

MY DOUBT

In "Quest of the Read Blade" there are pre-generated characters with 2 different passions (Homage and Loyalty) with different values, but all appaently linked to the same liege! (King Arthur, since they are all Arthur's household knights, so no need for other loyalties). 

For Example:

"Sir Echen" is a Bachelor Knight (Household Knight?) whose lord is King Arthur.

He has Fealty (lord) 12 and Homage (liege) 15....but aren't these two passions both linked to King Arthur??

 

What's the difference?

How can one establish whether to use Fealty or Homage....when they both apply to the same Lord?

This is senseless to me!

Please, can you help me understand?

Edited by Luca Cherstich
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Only the first two are household knights to Arthur.

I suspect that the designer simply had the Fealty passions included for completeness. Thus, it would apply to King Cadwalader if they choose to swear Fealty to him (no need to roll dice), not to Arthur or any other of their primary lieges; that would be Homage. Although if they opt to become his household knights in the end, their (temporary) Fealty would become their new Homage with the old one lost.

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....so, even ignoring Quest of the Red Blade, do you confirm that, unless one has more than 1 lord, it is worthless to track Fealty and Homage?
A single Loyalty: Lord should be enough. Isn't it?

 

I was also asking since I found something else which made me doubt.

According the expanded chronology in Uther Book page 106, the PCs lose "1 point of homage" if they do not raid Bedegraine in 481.

But who has Homage at such a early date? It seems to refer to a Homage (Uther) Passion but, I guess, most PCs should not have it unless they are direct vassals/household knights of Uther and not Salisbury vassals....am I wrong?

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Normally, the PKs should only have Homage (liege). For default setting, the liege is the Count of Salisbury.

The Homage loss in GPC Expansion is incurred since the PKs are ignoring the orders from their liege (the Count, himself ordered by the King) to raid. It has nothing to do with Homage (Uther) unless the PKs somehow have that already.

 

 

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Yeah, Homage is to one's liege lord, whoever that happens to be, and not necessarily to the King. Most Pks won't have a Homage (King) passion unless they are direct vassals to him - although the Round Table and such organizations does open that up a little more than normal.

In reality it was never quite as cut & dried as stated in the rules though. A knight would usually back whichever noble best represented the knight's interests. This was even more true the higher one was up the social ladder. Some would even try to play on both sides to try and secure their status no matter which side won.

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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@Morien has the right idea. The intention with including the pre-gens was so that the scenario could serve as a demo, but they're not "organic" to the scenario in the same way you might find with pre-gens in a Call of Cthulhu scenario. A GM could take the pre-gens and use them to start their own campaign, so we wanted to include both Passions for the GM to do with as they wish.

The "King Arthur" and "Camelot" entries in the Current Lord and Current Home entries could be viewed as place-holders in that regard. In retrospect, it might have been less confusing to just leave the spaces blank.

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6 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Ok!

It looks like normal, starting knights can start with just 1 passion (Loyalty/Homage), and they will start diving homages and fealties when they get more lords to obey.

Yeah, kinda. Homage is really just a sort of escape clause for if/when two loyalties come into conflict with each other. It allows a Knights to remain loyal to Lord A (Homange) despite loyalty to Lord B (Fealty) be pre-arranged agreement. 

Most knights would only have one liege lord so this wouldn't be an issue. Occasionally it can get more complicated if a knight inherits multiple holdings.

 

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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A related question.

A£50 estate holder can have a few household Knights.

The estate holder is a vassal of Earl Roderick and therefore he has Homage (Earl Roderick).

What passions do his own household Knights get?

Do the household knights have a Homage to Earl Roderick and Fealty to the £50 estate holder?

Or maybe can homage be linked to the one who knighted you?

In this case, could the £50 estate holder have knighted them or only the Earl can knighted them? I'm considering the possibility of giving Homage just to the £50 estate holder, but I do not know if he is maybe not powerful enough to justify it.

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They would probably get Homage to the Estate Holder, and not have any passion directed to  the Earl/Count, but it depends on if they were knights before the estate holder got the estate or after.

That's what makes being an estate holder such a big thing. Those knights are loyal to him, rather than some other lord and should stick by him. That's why estate holders (and all vassal knights) Are noted for loyalty. A liege lord thinks very carefully about elevating anyone to the status where they have men beneath them, as they always are a potential risk. That's why such men tend to be among the liege's most loyal vassals. It's also partly  why such titles tend to be gifts rather than grants, as it is hard to tell if a knights son will be as loyal as the father was.

 

Basically estate holders are bad for the liege lord, unless the prospective holder brings something to the table to make him worth the loss of estates and potential risk. Thus such postions are only given out the the most loyal battle lords, and rich realities who can be trusted to support the liege.

 

This is also one of the reasons why latter in the campaign the nobles tie the right to knight others to themselves, as a knight always owns some level of fealty to the one who knights and supports him. 

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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2 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Do we have anywhere in the books a place where it is said who can knigthen others and who cannot?

I don't think so, although Greg did mention it is some previous editions, and I think there is at least one example in Malory. 

 

Basically, early on a respected/famous knight can do it, but latter on it becomes the exclusive right of nobles. Part of the reason is because people don't want a bunch of knights riding around without any means of support, as that leads to problems.

2 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

So....can a relatively minor £50 estate holder make other Knights?

Yeah probably. At least early on. The major objections that arose were mostly because if was considered bad form to go around making knights that you couldn't or wouldn't support. It led to more mercenary and robber knights, and made it tougher for the existing family to secure knighthood for their own. But as the estate holder is maintaining those four knights, it would probably be okay. 

2 hours ago, Luca Cherstich said:

Or do we need a warlord?

Usually not.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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