About Estates and Hundreds mess

[The Wanderer]

Hello, I'm running a GPC as GM and now that we're playing during the Anarchy Period. I've just acquired BotE and BotW... 

Some of my players have more than one manor, but I want to use the estates. I'd like to reward one of my players with one estate from lady Ellen, within Salisbury... so...

1. Is it ok to gather his manors into one single estate? Or should I gift him with other estate?

2. How many estates does Salisbury have? Should I invent (create) the estate or are there some list? 

3. And with the hundreds, I understand they're not equal to estates... does a hundred "contain" a single estate? or could it have a few manors and estate(s)?

4. Also... do estates contain manors inside them? For example, BotW says that the caput major of an estate can be a manor... but I thought a manor and estate were separate and distinct parcels...

I know I have a kinda mess, but I'm trying to learn. Sorry for all the questions and my english (I'm not a native speaker...)!! And thanks in advance.

Edited March 29, 2020 by The Wanderer

[Morien]

41 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Some of my players have more than one manor, but I want to use the estates.

Book of the Estates scales down to £10 single manor level, it even has an example £10 manor. So you don't have to give the Player-knights estates in order to use the Book of the Estate.

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I'd like to reward one of my players with one estate from lady Ellen, within Salisbury... so...

Possibly a VERY bad idea, more of this below.

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1. Is it ok to gather his manors into one single estate? Or should I gift him with other estate?

Yes, the manors can be gathered into a single estate if everyone agrees. I am not sure why the PK would wish to do this, though? He has way more flexibility when the manors are individual manors. I guess if some of the manors are just gifts (non-inheritable), then gathering them into a granted (inheritable) estate would be a good thing for him, but otherwise, I don't see the point.

However, singling a single player out that you just want to give his character an estate out of the blue is a VERY BAD IDEA and smacks of favoritism ("Why his PK gets an estate and my character didn't?"). Like I said in the beginning, you don't have to have estate-sized holdings in order to use the Book of the Estate.

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2. How many estates does Salisbury have? Should I invent (create) the estate or are there some list? 

I think none. They are rare, much rarer than the overly generous NPC landholdings in KAP 5.2 gave to understand. However, if you really really wish to, you could turn the bannerets of West Lavington and Lady Adwen's inheritance into two estates. However, be aware that Greg downgraded Adwen's landholdings in a forum post, and that is a good indication to me that bannerets should not exist as vassals of the Count of Salisbury: there are simply not enough vassal manors.

I think I have mentioned often enough that I think giving an estate to a PK who already holds multiple manors is: 1) a bad idea, and 2) unnecessary.

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3. And with the hundreds, I understand they're not equal to estates... does a hundred "contain" a single estate? or could it have a few manors and estate(s)?

Some hundreds are small, down to a single manor. (Example: "Pool Hundredal Manor: £13.1+£0.4; Jagent, Pool H.; £13.1 food render, and hundred court (£0.4)." The manor IS the Hundred and vice versa.)

Some are individual estates (for simplicity, Book of the Estate's example estates are like this, but this is very much just a simplification, not the norm).

Most are collections of manors, each of which are possibly owned by different barons/knights, and there might even be (parts of) an estate mixed in. But estates are rare to begin with.

Since you have the Book of the Warlord, it has some examples of Manors and Hundreds when generating a random Barony. You can see how complicated this gets. For example, Bordermark Manor:

"Bordermark: £12; Salisbury, Hillfort H.; £12 food render. £24 is held by Ludshall [sic] Castle (Sheriff), £18 by Count Salisbury, £12 by Ramstown Manor." So this is saying that Hillfort Hundred is divided thusly:

Bordermark Manor: £12 (owner: whoever this random barony is for)

Likely 2-3 unnamed manors: £24 (owner: Llud's Hall Castle, i.e. whoever the King appoints as the Sheriff of Salisbury and Gentian counties.)

Likely 2 unnamed manors: £18 (owner: Count Salisbury)

Ramstown Manor: £12 (owner: Whoever is the lord of Ramstown Manor)

Of course, the above is contradicted by Count of Salisbury's holdings later on in the book (and earlier) where it is said that he holds Hillfort Hundred worth £61.2...

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Morien

[Greyblade]

As good as these books were, I find them to be a bit of a mess. 

I hope the new edition gives us a unified, cleaned up version of those, that will be utilized across the whole series

[Atgxtg]

On 3/29/2020 at 6:05 PM, The Wanderer said:

Hello, I'm running a GPC as GM and now that we're playing during the Anarchy Period. I've just acquired BotE and BotW... 

Some of my players have more than one manor, but I want to use the estates. I'd like to reward one of my players with one estate from lady Ellen, within Salisbury... so...

1. Is it ok to gather his manors into one single estate? Or should I gift him with other estate?

Generally an estate is considered to be one big parcel of land. So to gather manors into one estate they would sort of have to be close to each other. You'd have to consider the manors in between and determine if there was anyone there, and what do do about them. It's possible for a liege to move a vassal from one manor to another, but it's not a popular thing to do, and usually requires the liege to add something to sweeten the pot. 

The big thing to consider here is that giving someone an estate is a big honor/reward. It's about a good a reward as a knight can hope to ever achieve. SO you need to consider why the Countess would give one knight such a great honor, and he has to be so important to her that she values him more than ten other knights, as those knight won't be getting manors if he gets an estate.

 

On 3/29/2020 at 6:05 PM, The Wanderer said:

2. How many estates does Salisbury have? Should I invent (create) the estate or are there some list? 

None, normally. The key factors here are that:

• A liege normally gives/grants away only around 20% of his manors.
• A ten manor estate means making one vassal knight very happy instead on making ten vassal knights happy. So the liege must value that one knight more than ten other knights.
• A estate holder has ten knights under him and will be a major figure at court and on the battlefield for the Count. That also makes him the most dangerous type of vassal if he were to rebel to shift allegiance to someone else. So he must have proven both his prowess and his loyalty. 

In the case of Salisbury, considering the 1 manor per knight rule of thumb, and the force of 150 knights, it has about 150 manors, of which only about 30 (20%) would be held by vassals. So adding in an estate means that there would only be 21 vassal knights with land. Two estates reduces that to a dozen knights, and three to only 3.

 

On 3/29/2020 at 6:05 PM, The Wanderer said:

3. And with the hundreds, I understand they're not equal to estates... does a hundred "contain" a single estate? or could it have a few manors and estate(s)?

It's all over the place and more of an administration term, based upon population, geography, history, and custom. Most would contain several manors but few if any could hold an entire estate or more than one. IMO you'r best off just ignoring the hundreds. It might be different once a detailed book of Salisbury comes out with a list of manors and such, but for now it's more of a pain.

That said, any estate would probably end up being the hundred. That is is an estate hold held ten manors around Thornbush, he's probably end up with an este entire in, or mostly in Thornbush, and it might even be known as Thornbush estate. 

 

On 3/29/2020 at 6:05 PM, The Wanderer said:

4. Also... do estates contain manors inside them? For example, BotW says that the caput major of an estate can be a manor... but I thought a manor and estate were separate and distinct parcels...

AN estate is just a group of manors held by the same knight. The term is used to denote a knight with a large holding but not large enough to deserve a greater title. He has more status than a knight, but isn't the equal to a Baron or Count.

On 3/29/2020 at 6:05 PM, The Wanderer said:

I know I have a kinda mess, but I'm trying to learn. Sorry for all the questions and my english (I'm not a native speaker...)!! And thanks in advance.

No problem. MOst of this stuff is both archaic and spefic to Britian, and so even native English speakers probably don't follow all of it. Our modern views of equality and fairness also tend to work against us here. 

[The Wanderer]

Thank you very much, you made things pretty clear now.

By now, I have four players. One of them (6000 glory) has 4 manors, other has 3 manors (but have just died, with 5800 glory) and the other two have 2 manors each (around 5000 glory).

What do you think? Is it too much? hahaha😅

[Morien]

48 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

What do you think? Is it too much? hahaha😅

Too much for me, but hey, it is your game. As long as you and your players are happy, that is all that matters.

Let me guess... you let the PKs marry the heiresses from the Salisbury write-up? (Greg downgraded their landholdings in a forum post, since there wasn't simply enough manors for those massive estates to be reasonable. Even 1-manor heiresses would be very rare, like one per generation, under normal circumstances.)

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

A estate holder has ten knights under him

May have 10 knights under him. Estates do not come in a single size. And technically, a £100 estate holder will have 9 knights under him, with himself being the 10th, if we are nitpicking.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

Yup. I was just using the "typical example". 

In reality no two estates are exactly the same, or any two manors either.

[The Wanderer]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Too much for me, but hey, it is your game. As long as you and your players are happy, that is all that matters.

Let me guess... you let the PKs marry the heiresses from the Salisbury write-up? (Greg downgraded their landholdings in a forum post, since there wasn't simply enough manors for those massive estates to be reasonable. Even 1-manor heiresses would be very rare, like one per generation, under normal circumstances.)

Well, I think I overdid it while Roderick was alive and gave the first two manors to the heroes of any battle... and so on: 

- One married a heiress (but not one of the richest, and had to court her during two or three years, using the table of GPC... but rolled a natural 20 after all so...). He obtained only one manor.

- Other (Medbourne), after defeating Gorboduc, the Countess gave him the manor.

- Two were given to the two knights with the highest Glory, after St Albans (considering a lot of nobles died...) because the knights supported Ellen to rule Salisbury.

- The last one, after defeating a foreign robber knight who was pillaging the border of Salisbury... the traitor was a vasall of Duke Ulfius, so after the feud he confiscated the manor and gifted to Ellen in sign of peace, who then gave it to one of the knights.

And that's all😅😅 maybe too much, I admit, but now it's done and I'll have to cope with it!!

[Atgxtg]

21 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

And that's all😅😅 maybe too much, I admit, but now it's done and I'll have to cope with it!!

Don't feel too bad about that. It was sort of the norm for KAP3-4. Two manors per knight won't break the game either.

What I will warn you against is granting the PKs any more manors, or at least doing so easily. More land translates into more wealth, more glory, better armor, bigger army and so forth, which in turn can lead to their gaining even more land, power and glory. Due to the nature of the game, it becomes very easy for things to escalate and difficult to take anything away from a player once they have it. Not unless you want to wipe a family out.

 

[The Wanderer]

One thing is that all the land is gifted but not granted... so if they die, at least a part is going to return to the Count/ess ^^

[Morien]

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

Well, I think I overdid it while Roderick was alive and gave the first two manors to the heroes of any battle... and so on: 

As I said, it is your game, and GM it any way you like.

That being said, in my campaign Roderick doesn't have spare manors to hand out in droves. After all, the chances are that if the PKs do something whilst they are in their 20s (most of Uther Period), then there are probably dozens of knights in their 30s who are doing even better. It needs to be really exceptional for the PKs to merit a manor, like saving Roderick's life or something like that. Capturing Octa or killing Gorlois might be worth a reward from Uther, but not from Roderick. In our campaign, I rewarded the PKs with a manor each (two for the one who landed the killing blow) for killing Gorlois, but the lands were in Tintagel County and got lost when Cornwall conquered that county.

Another nice trick is to give the PKs GIFT manors, rather than GRANT manors. Gift manors are held only by the original recipient during his lifetime. When he dies, they revert back to the liege; they are not inherited. This means that the PK pretty much has to earn every manor twice: first to get it gifted, and then to turn it into an inheritable grant.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

- One married a heiress (but not one of the richest, and had to court her during two or three years, using the table of GPC... but rolled a natural 20 after all so...). He obtained only one manor.

Yeah, I hate giving heiresses on a random roll. Sure, they can woo the heiress all they like, but unless they do something major for the liege lord (who is likely her guardian and hence decides who she will marry, the heiress herself gets little say), a marriage isn't going to happen. Heiresses are one of the main ways for the liege lord to reward a full service from a loyal, heroic household knight, which also means that the other household knights will strive to prove themselves loyal and heroic to win such a price. So it needs to be something exceptional on the part of the PK. Just doing well on the battlefield in general is not enough.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

- Other (Medbourne), after defeating Gorboduc, the Countess gave him the manor.

Right of conquest, in the middle of the magical forest, and no loss to the countess. This I approve. Of course, since it is isolated from the rest of the Salisbury, all sorts of things can happen there and it will take until the PK returns to check up on things before he finds out what has happened...

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

- Two were given to the two knights with the highest Glory, after St Albans (considering a lot of nobles died...) because the knights supported Ellen to rule Salisbury.

Fair enough, assuming that these were one each. But these could have been gifts (see above).

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

- The last one, after defeating a foreign robber knight who was pillaging the border of Salisbury... the traitor was a vasall of Duke Ulfius, so after the feud he confiscated the manor and gifted to Ellen in sign of peace, who then gave it to one of the knights.

Yep, again this was no loss to Ellen, although technically, this would make Ellen a vassal of Ulfius. The manor is still part of Ulfius' grant from Uther, you see. Ulfius doesn't OWN the land, he is just a vassal of the king in charge of the land. It is a bit strange that Ulfius would hand a manor over rather than just the knight's head, especially given that Ulfius was happy enough to let Blains of Levcomagus feud with Roderick over a decade... But maybe Ulfius really needed Salisbury's help with something, especially if he was getting pressure from the Angles and Essex?

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

And that's all😅😅 maybe too much, I admit, but now it's done and I'll have to cope with it!!

So yeah, other than the original battlefield manors and the random heiress, the rest of them sounded reasonable enough. But do note that they can come with strings/complications attached, such as Medbourne getting attacked by some bandits/monsters/faerie in the Forest Sauvage.

Also, I hope you have been clear that the Saxon tribute is PER manor, not per PK? That is something that really made my players groan with dismay during the Anarchy.

[Morien]

7 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

One thing is that all the land is gifted but not granted... so if they die, at least a part is going to return to the Count/ess ^^

Oh, excellent! No worries, then. Carry on! Assuming these are first generation PKs, they will be croaking soon from aging rolls and the like.

[The Wanderer]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Yep, again this was no loss to Ellen, although technically, this would make Ellen a vassal of Ulfius. The manor is still part of Ulfius' grant from Uther, you see. Ulfius doesn't OWN the land, he is just a vassal of the king in charge of the land.  It is a bit strange that Ulfius would hand a manor over rather than just the knight's head, especially given that Ulfius was happy enough to let Blains of Levcomagus feud with Roderick over a decade... But maybe Ulfius really needed Salisbury's help with something, especially if he was getting pressure from the Angles and Essex?

Yes that was the reason, saxons were making pressure, specially since I'm going to play Rydychan adventure next and there is said that de saxons attack Silchester caunty. I understand the vassal thing... then I will simply say the player that the manor was gifted for him by Ulfius because it was the land which was raided by the traitor (that was the real thing that happened on the adventure so it's a minor change) ^^ 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Also, I hope you have been clear that the Saxon tribute is PER manor, not per PK? That is something that really made my players groan with dismay during the Anarchy.

OMG I didn't knew that!! I will have to drop down from 3 pounds to 2 or 1 then (as you reccomended on another post, I know). I kept it 3 pounds because I thought it was a tribute per PK 🤣 (and with so much manor they were very wealthy, you know). Now, if I don't drop it they are going to starve til death!!!

Also they will need to have some treasure to hire soldiers in order to take over Rydychan...

[Morien]

13 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

OMG I didn't knew that!! I will have to drop down from 3 pounds to 2 or 1 then (as you reccomended on another post, I know). I kept it 3 pounds because I thought it was a tribute per PK 🤣 (and with so much manor they were very wealthy, you know). Now, if I don't drop it they are going to starve til death!!!

Yep, it is per manor. This caused much bitching and crying by the PKs during the Anarchy.

Also, do take into account that you are supposed to bring a knight PER MANOR to the muster as well. So if a PK has 4 manors, he'd better have 3 household knights, too (and 2 footmen per knight). As per BotE/W economy rules, you are only pocketing 10% of the money (which comes to £1 per manor*) to use in your own projects, not the full £6 manors in GPC. And if you go by the strict rules, this is in food, which is good only for a year. Then it is gone, unless you trade it in for treasure at 2:1 exchange rate. The PKs do get a boost to their Standard of Living too, though: SoL = £5 + 10% of the income, so a 4 manor (average £10 per manor) knight would have Standard of Living £5+£4 = £9, which is good enough for Rich. (Then again, I am personally against the standard of living modifiers in childbirth and child survival, so it is just extra Glory and a minor courtly bonus for us.) So it is much harder to get very wealthy, especially during Anarchy, even with multiple manors. It is not free money.

* If you are using the £6 manors, then 1 household knight = £4 expense, and 2 footmen = £1 expense, meaning that you are left with £6-£5 = £1 extra money per year. BotE/W is a bit more generous than this, but if you have been using £6 manors, this is an easy way to explain where the rest of the money goes.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Morien

[The Wanderer]

Yeah, I've studied the economy issues and made a simplified scheme/abstract for my players to understand it 😅 (add the complication that the books are in english and we're all from Spain!).

Do you reccomend lowering the tribute to 1 or 2 pounds? We're are using the lots of damage, but is tribute measured in lots (as it's in render) or in pounds?

Yet another question... raids, pillage, etc... it occurs PER manor (with 10 lots each) or is it preferably to make the damage to the lands of the same player as a whole (with a total of 10 lots) (supposing that the lands are in the same county of course!)?

Sorry for bombing you with sooo many questions 😥

 

*Edit: I'm using the whole BotE/BotW system, including £10 manors!!

Edited April 1, 2020 by The Wanderer

[Morien]

5 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Do you reccomend lowering the tribute to 1 or 2 pounds? We're are using the lots of damage, but is tribute measured in lots (as it's in render) or in pounds?

I'd say in Render since otherwise it is a bit too tough for the PKs to come up with the silver. As for how much its should be, I did give my suggestion in that old forum post you said you read? Generally, though, I think 2 lots is about the way to go (2 lots = £2 per £10 manor). This way, they can afford a single tribute easily enough, but paying two tributes the same year will start to hurt.

5 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Yet another question... raids, pillage, etc... it occurs PER manor (with 10 lots each) or is it preferably to make the damage to the lands of the same player as a whole (with a total of 10 lots) (supposing that the lands are in the same county of course!)?

Totally up to you how simple you and your players wish to make it. We have been doing both: most of the manors are handled as individuals, but one estate is a conglomeration of 5 manors, handled as a single unit. If all the manors are clumped together, it is easier to justify treating them as a single unit. It gets a bit more difficult to justify all of them getting raided by Wessex if you have one manor near the Wessex border and other manors tucked away west of Sarum. This ought to only happen if the Saxons are strong enough to actually force the defenders to stay within the walls of the castles.

5 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Sorry for bombing you with sooo many questions 😥

No worries, happy to help.

[Atgxtg]

15 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

Yeah, I've studied the economy issues and made a simplified scheme/abstract for my players to understand it 😅 (add the complication that the books are in english and we're all from Spain!).

The way I've simplistic it for my players is just to say that a manor produces £10 for the knight but his upkeep and expenses cost £9. I also note that there is other income provided by the court that helps to run the manor, taxes that go to the king, and food for the peasants, but that the knight doesn't have to deal with any of that. It keeps things very simple, and we only go into finer details when a player has a reason to.

 

[fulk]

This was the whole point of switching from BoManor to BoEstate/Warlord.  All the knight really needs to know is that his 10L manor covers him and gives him 1L to spend (was 2% in BoE but 10% in BoW).  All of the tables on where the $$ goes are really just fluff, although fun and potentially useful.

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, fulk said:

This was the whole point of switching from BoManor to BoEstate/Warlord.  All the knight really needs to know is that his 10L manor covers him and gives him 1L to spend (was 2% in BoE but 10% in BoW).  All of the tables on where the $$ goes are really just fluff, although fun and potentially useful.

I'd say it was a bit more than fluff, but yes the idea is that in most circumstances we can just ignore beyond the fact that it supports the knight, his family, and provides some pocket change. That makes it much simpler and easier than working through a spreadsheet every game session as in BoM.

[The Wanderer]

Yeah, that's the way I explained it to them, overall. None of my players are interested in any details, except one of them, so...

[The Wanderer]

20 hours ago, Morien said:

I'd say in Render since otherwise it is a bit too tough for the PKs to come up with the silver. As for how much its should be, I did give my suggestion in that old forum post you said you read? Generally, though, I think 2 lots is about the way to go (2 lots = £2 per £10 manor). This way, they can afford a single tribute easily enough, but paying two tributes the same year will start to hurt.

As squeeze causes permanent damage... does tribute also cause damage (permanent or temporary)? O is it just pounds in render and no damage at all? 🤔🤔

Edited April 2, 2020 by The Wanderer

[Morien]

3 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

As squeeze causes permanent damage... does tribute also cause damage (permanent or temporary)? O is it just pounds in render and no damage at all? 🤔🤔

No permanent damage. It is simply render that would normally go to the lord and now doesn't. Squeezing is getting extra from the peasants. That being said, I would lower the permanent damage from squeezes during Anarchy: things are bad everywhere so better to stick with the lord who is not a total psycho.

[The Wanderer]

How would you lower it? Well, by now they didn't squeezed yet...

[Morien]

17 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

How would you lower it? Well, by now they didn't squeezed yet...

Simple option, just reduce the squeeze damage by 1.

I think we had a discussion about the BotW's squeeze damage being a bit high as it is, if you search the forum. As it is, Squeezing is probably a stupid idea, whereas it works better as a temptation. So I could even see an argument lowering it by 1 regardless and then lowering it a second time during Anarchy if you have to pay tribute: the peasants realize that this is to avoid their huts being burned, so they might grumble a bit but they are not about to abandon their homes and fields over it, since it is probably as bad if not worse elsewhere.