Well, there is no such thing as too much money, but...

I found a problem when a player with 2+ manors starts to building improvements in manors other than his home. He can rapidly expand his income in just a few years.

I believe this mentality of improving non-home manors isn't appropriate to the theme neither it's historically accurate. I tried to talk to my players about it, but they argue that they are not being greedy, they are just trying to improve the lands given by their lords (Loyalty(Lord)) to improve the life of their families (Love(Family)).

I believe improving their home-manor is fair, but improving their extra manors is overpowered and unknightly. So, how can I deal with that?

- Would their lord be offended of suspicious by enterprising PKs spreading their librum?
- Would the local religious authority think it is a public display of immodesty, probably a lack of generosity or even plain greedy?
- How would they family react? Extra income is just income and always welcome?
- What would neighbouring knights think of it?
- Would enemies be more attracted to the PK's lands?

Also, for the rules, how to enforce the 'stick to your home-manor for improvements and stop building apiaries everywhere'

- Should they get a check in a negative trait (such as selfish or wordly) if they do? (they would argue they should get love-family)
- Should pillagers be more common in non-home manors when PK builds improvements?
- Should buildings take longer or be more expensive in non-homem manors?
- I am interpreting things wrong here and extra manors in the same region (such as Salisbury) should count as one manor with extra income?

Thanks
PS: obviously non-native english speaker

Well, there is no such thing as too much money, but...

I found a problem when a player with 2+ manors starts to building improvements in manors other than his home. He can rapidly expand his income in just a few years.

I believe this mentality of improving non-home manors isn't appropriate to the theme neither it's historically accurate. I tried to talk to my players about it, but they argue that they are not being greedy, they are just trying to improve the lands given by their lords (Loyalty(Lord)) to improve the life of their families (Love(Family)).

I thought tha BoM says you can not do this?
Well, Book of ESTATE says you cannot
And there is a good reason: a dispute over the property
Maybe some cousin will come in and claim the land, and then to settle things the liege lord will seize it until the court case is settled...


I believe improving their home-manor is fair, but improving their extra manors is overpowered and unknightly. So, how can I deal with that?

- Would their lord be offended of suspicious by enterprising PKs spreading their librum?
- Would the local religious authority think it is a public display of immodesty, probably a lack of generosity or even plain greedy?
- How would they family react? Extra income is just income and always welcome?
- What would neighbouring knights think of it?
- Would enemies be more attracted to the PK's lands?

All those are possible


Also, for the rules, how to enforce the 'stick to your home-manor for improvements and stop building apiaries everywhere'

Say the apiaries are not cumulative


- Should they get a check in a negative trait (such as selfish or wordly) if they do? (they would argue they should get love-family)
- Should pillagers be more common in non-home manors when PK builds improvements?
- Should buildings take longer or be more expensive in non-home manors?
- I am interpreting things wrong here and extra manors in the same region (such as Salisbury) should count as one manor with extra income?

Use any or all of those
or, just tell them Gamemaster Greg says "no building on anything but home lands."
Also, give them zero Glory for building off-land


PS: obviously non-native english speaker

Nope, not obvious at all

Greg, I am not sure what you are saying.

Lets say I have three manors (either demesne or with household knights, in any case, directly held by me from a liege lord). One in Eastern Salisbury where I usually live (my 'home' manor), a second one in Western Salisbury and a third one in Hampshire.

So what you are saying is:
1) that I can ONLY build in the manor in Eastern Salisbury?
Or
2) that I can only build on land I own, i.e. on those three manors but not on my neighbor's land? In which case, well, duh.

Assuming the answer is 2), the follow-up question is this... Would you get the checks from all the improvements in all manors, or would you need to choose which manor you are mostly situated (i.e. home) and get the checks only from your most usual habitation? So far, we have assumed the former, although I could see an argument for the latter, too. No stacking same improvements makes perfect sense, too. For instance, the bees of multiple apiaries would compete for food, lumber mills for lumber, jewellers for customers, etc...

As far as for the original question:

I see no big problem with players building investments, as long as you enforce the one improvement per year -rule. It tends to take about 10 years for them to break even (although this depends on the investment), and they are very very vulnerable to raids. During Anarchy, they are just so much kindling for the Saxons to burn.

As for being rich, encourage your players to spend the money on better lifestyle (rich, superlative). Trust me, it is worth it in saved child mortality and the increase in childbirth, which gives the players more spares to play in the next generation, and more moneysinks in dowries and knightly equipment. All that money will be spent, in the end. :) Also, a rich knight (a knight with more than one manor) who is 'slumming' with normal knight status might get some unfavorable comments about being miserly like a merchant! A true knight spends his wealth, not hoards it!

Finally, the liege lords are rubbing their hands as they watch those investments produce wealth. After all, when the time comes for the heir to inherit the estate, the terms of the 'lease' will be re-examined. If the one knight manor is now producing £12 yearly, the liege lord would be within his rights to demand 2 knights now (the PK + hhk = £6+£4 = £10 with £2 left over). So don't worry, it will take care of itself in the end. :)

Oh, forgot to add... Raids would be more common to manors which are inadequately defended (as in, no knight in residence), or which have rich prizes, for instance, lots of investments, especially easily transported (horse herds, livestock in general, and jewelry).

I could see excessive 'land development' get a check in Worldly (you are interested in here and now, this earth). I probably wouldn't go for Selfish, unless the PK would be pinching pennies when they could easily afford to spend more money on their families. I wouldn't give Love(Family) for investments, nor lifestyle choices. If they are spending money to turn younger sons into knights, then perhaps, or giving big dowries to younger daughters too.

Greg, I am not sure what you are saying.
Lets say I have three manors (either demesne or with household knights, in any case, directly held by me from a liege lord). One in Eastern Salisbury where I usually live (my 'home' manor), a second one in Western Salisbury and a third one in Hampshire.
So what you are saying is:
1) that I can ONLY build in the manor in Eastern Salisbury?

Yes
The custom was to have a caput major, a chief manor that shows off the wealth and power of the lord
It is the way it was done

Your other follow-ups are very good too

There are numerous ways of handling this without restricting building.
1. A lineage is all the descendants of one great grandfather - thus every knight is a member of his paternal lineage, but also of his maternal and grand maternal lineages - that a lot of relatives whom can show up asking aid. PC [why is PK being used for player characters?] how have a choice of aiding them or having their family love and generosity go down. that's also a lot of people to gripe about their stingy rich relative and lower his glory.

2. King Arthur has been captured an aid is demanded per manor from all knights of the realm - PC whom don't pay will have the sheriff after them and seizing their property and likely more than owed.

3. King Arthur visits and demands a "benevolence". English kings during the hundred years war asked for these gifts of rich subject often. Arthur is holding those grand Pentecostal tourneys every year and makes war with everyone - how do you think he's paying for them!

4. Royal wedding with an aid demanded. King Authur has known sisters, but there's no reason not to give him other sisters or even daughters not in the romances.

5. Their lord needs a random too and aids when his eldest son is knighted and his eldest daughter married - they get to kiss a years income away each time. Also never let them get a manor without paying a relief to their lord of at leats one year's income from that manor - drain the coffers of those heirs!

6. Greedy neighbors claim you've encroached upon their manors. Your PC are forced to fight them or have them seize some of their improved manors. If they don't fight them and let the courts and lawyers settle things they lose part or all of a manor immediately, need to hire a lawyer and courts have been always very chancy in their verdicts, innocence is no real defense nor is being the rightful owner. If they fight and kill or cripple some one one can drain their coffers (actually treasury arc or forcers) with wergelds to their families and manbots to their lord - hint these were huge, much worse than ransoms.

7. Thieves and beggars will be attracted to those rich manors too and often the greedy fingers of ones steward was just as bad.

8. Chapmen will also be attracted bringing rich good for sale, tempting the knight or his dame to indulge in them. A rich knight is going to lose that argument with his wife almost every time and once he gives in his or her indulgence. His living expenses could be going up quickly!

9. One of their men has been disabled in their service, they need to both support him and his replacement. At a bare minimum they need to buy a corodary from a monastery which give give the poor fellow food, drink and clothing for life (d3+3 years income for him). These are also good for those whorish daughters and nieces whom are dishonored, unacceptable to convents as nuns and still family. Real convents had numerous corodians during the middle ages. most convents whether monasteries or nunneries had a lot of agricultural production that they could not easily convert to cash and so were eager to sell corodaries for hard cash.

10. A cleric comes by asking for contributions to build this or that church or cathedral. Can your rich knights say no without their piety going down or keep those religious knight bonuses when they're stingy to God! Knights were not subject to tithes but clerics can still get their hooks into them ;)

11. This is the most easy way to drain those coffers. If they're not near a major market town or navigable river all those improvement may cost double and the yield in cash be half or less - it was not just convents whom could not convert production into cash easily.

There are numerous ways of handling this without restricting building.

2. King Arthur has been captured an aid is demanded per manor from all knights of the realm - PC whom don't pay will have the sheriff after them and seizing their property and likely more than owed.

3. King Arthur visits and demands a "benevolence". English kings during the hundred years war asked for these gifts of rich subject often. Arthur is holding those grand Pentecostal tourneys every year and makes war with everyone - how do you think he's paying for them!

4. Royal wedding with an aid demanded. King Authur has known sisters, but there's no reason not to give him other sisters or even daughters not in the romances.


Good suggestions, and I mainly limit myself to the Arthurian ones. I would be hesitant to do these things. First of all, Arthur is a bit too high profile to be ransomed willy-nilly. He is captured a couple of times, but freed, not ransomed. Having him to be ransomed would make his halo dim, so to speak.

That goes double for the "benevolences". Arthur is the epitome of a Generous Lord, included into the Generosity Triad. Whereas kings who made frequent use of benevolences were described as avaricious. This would certainly cramp my style.

While it might be interesting to include a daughter of Arthur, I think I will keep his marriage with Guinevere childless. (I don't think illegitimate daughters count for the Universal Aid.)

However, all those above points, like you say in point 5), can apply to the closer liege lord as well. Assuming the PKs don't hold their manors directly from Arthur, that is. For instance, most of the PKs in our campaign own lands in Salisbury. And as it happens, their new Earl (by the right of marriage to Jenna), is Agravaine. Now, Agravaine I can see bringing his entourage like locusts to eat the stores of a PK who seems easily afford it. Or asked to pay for the restoration of a section of the wall on the Sarum Castle; perhaps with a carrot of an office bringing some Glory in return. Or he could simply push for an extra tax for some project or another, and those vassal knights who do not support his motion and pony up the cash, end up in Agravaine's these-people-I-want-to-make-suffer list. Shut out from the Court at Sarum. Garrison duty demanded when there is the Pentecost court in Camelot, and other important dates. The Earl's entourage just happening by and stays for a couple of weeks. There are plenty of ways for the Earl to show his displeasure and still stay within the law. And Agravaine is petty enough to make full use of them. :P

In the end, I reiterate, this is probably not a huge problem. Investments take time. Even a couple of raids from disgruntled enemies will make a dent in the finances of the PK, especially if he was away adventuring during the raid. And in the end, so what if the PK is making £12 extra a year? I admit, I sometimes suffer from that kneejerk reaction, too, but when looking at it, the PK is probably spending £6 to the lifestyle, leaving only £6. An Andalusian is what, £20? So if he gets an Andalusian after three years, great. He gets a benefit, but the horse is a perishable. The money vanishes, and eventually the horse does so too. If he keeps investing and investing? Good for him. That money is in practice out of the circulation as it gets tied up in new investments, and once the PK dies, the Lord gets to re-appraise the estate''s duties. If the formerly 2-manor estate with £12 is producing £36, the Lord gets to chortle with glee and demand, at least, 6 knights for it. And £36 in relief (inheritance tax). ;)

My players usually spent their years as Rich or Superlative knights, specially as their children have little to no chance of dying during the winter phase, so this is really not a problem.

The problem is the improvements quickly accumulate. One of the PKs in our table has 3 manors filled with buildings and such, and he gets usually £30+ a year; he them promptly uses this money to spread new developments into his lands, increasing his income an extra £1-2 each year. And this particular PK isn't even the richest of the bunch! An note that the extra income easily compensates for raids in his lands. On the other hand, with a single manor this development is way more controlled and organic. The poorest PK in table, with only his home land, takes 3+ years to build an improvement. BotM has the potential to make each manor generates £10+ in just a few years if you have a spare manor to generate extra income.

I enjoyed Morien's suggestion of an heir revising the 'terms of leasing, but how should I proceed? Should the lord split a particularly lucrative manor in two and demands the PK provides a new knight for the new manor? Or just pays an annual £4 for a new knight? Or demands the PK to sire a new knight and lease him part of the land? I'm lost here.

Also Greg's idea of a cousin claiming the lands is neat, but how to proceed? Why would he claim the lands, and in which conditions should their liege lord decide in favor of the claimer?

Thanks

The problem here is the extra manor, the demense manor that has no charges.
I seem to he made it just too easy to have one, or perhaps made it seem like they were common.
Probably those widows are the culprits.
I will fix that next edition (if there is a next edition)


My players usually spent their years as Rich or Superlative knights, specially as their children have little to no chance of dying during the winter phase, so this is really not a problem.
The problem is the improvements quickly accumulate. One of the PKs in our table has 3 manors filled with buildings and such, and he gets usually £30+ a year; he them promptly uses this money to spread new developments into his lands, increasing his income an extra £1-2 each year. And this particular PK isn't even the richest of the bunch! An note that the extra income easily compensates for raids in his lands. On the other hand, with a single manor this development is way more controlled and organic. The poorest PK in table, with only his home land, takes 3+ years to build an improvement. BotM has the potential to make each manor generates £10+ in just a few years if you have a spare manor to generate extra income.

Yea, that extra manor messes it up.
What to do?
King Uther is pretty much an absolute king, and he can get away with a lot that seems unjust. That's how it is. Go ahead and revolt against him if you don't like it. You'll lose everything that way.
So maybe he just sends the sheriff to assess the property, and afterwards changes the terms of the holding to be equal to the maximum number of knights it can afford. Heck, maybe he charges it back and the PK has to pay for the money he collected over the last few years too. Maybe King Uther just says, "You have a tax of £25 due for your unauthorized construction. I'll give you five years to pay it back. Oh yea, the interest is 50% per year, compounded."
He is the king. His word is law. Go ahead and revolt! He'd love to have you land in his personal demense...
Can he do that? Yep, he's the king. As I said, go ahead and try to argue. You will be able to count your friends on allies on a hand without fingers.
Arbitrary?
Yes.


I enjoyed Morien's suggestion of an heir revising the 'terms of leasing, but how should I proceed? Should the lord split a particularly lucrative manor in two and demands the PK provides a new knight for the new manor? Or just pays an annual £4 for a new knight? Or demands the PK to sire a new knight and lease him part of the land? I'm lost here.

This is detailed in WARLORDS
Whenever an heir dies the king sends an escheater to take over the land until the new heir is determined. This can take a year or three or so. The escheater empanels a local jury of commoners to tell all they know of the history and heirs. Local men or importance are asked too.
These last may claim it is supposed to be their land. Distant relatives come out of the woodwork.
When it is settled, then the designated heir swears loyalty to the king (or whoever his liege lord is) and pays a relief to take possession of his land.
(excerpted from WARLORDS here)
The amount of the relief is entirely arbitrary, dependant on the good will of the king. However, King Uther’s standard is that a knight pays £10, and a nobleman pays a rate of £5 per knight that he is obliged to supply to the king. Thus Count Roderick, who is responsible for supplying 8 eschilles, or 140 knights, paid £700 to inherit his father’s land and title.


Also Greg's idea of a cousin claiming the lands is neat, but how to proceed?

Again, from WARLORDS:
Litigation
Lords tend to win suits against lower-ranking lords. Against equally ranked opponents, judgments are impossible to predict.
For Player Character Legal Actions a knight tells a lawyer what he wants, and pays a fee of at least £1. He will get regular report each winter from the clerk on his case. Every so often the clerk will ask for more money. The gamemaster might insert annual details of it moving up the ladder of Justice. When one of these wayward lawsuits is settled the gamemaster will inform the litigants.
Each disputed parcel requires an annual payment of £1 to maintain a lawyer who pursues success in each suit.
The annual fee that is paid is partially for the lawyer’s upkeep, and partially for greasing palms, obtaining access to Justiciers, and simple bribes. Larger payments indicate faster processing and, usually, greater success. Every year the events are like an opposed resolution roll of Justice plus bribes.
Richer lords usually win their cases, simply because they pay their lawyers more. For player knights or lords to increase a chance to succeed, they can pay more. While there is accurate way to measure future success, a £10 annual payment will almost always swing the scales of Justice towards success, and a £20 payment is almost a guaranteed success.
Unless, of course, the opposition also pays an equal or almost equal amount. Thus, at irregular intervals lawyers will abruptly appear at court urging a greater investment for the year. Lords engaged in litigation would be wise to listen to and act upon these pleas, or risk losing their suit.
And, as always, the king can intervene, and he will for his favorites, and decide the result according to his personal criteria.


Why would he claim the lands,

Greed, power, jealousy, Hate of his cousin
maybe all of those

and in which conditions should their liege lord decide in favor of the claimer?
If the claimant is a better knight, or promises to give the liege more money, there is a good chance that he will get it

Nasty? Yep.
This is the Middle Ages, the sword age, the spear age, the age with Might Makes Right.
King Arthur and his knights set a new standard, but that is not followed by all men--most do not, in fact.
KAP needs these brutal, ugly realities to exist because otherwise the high standards of chivalry do not mean much.

So the idea would be
1) improvements are for you home manor
2) Additonal manors grant should, most of the time, be enfoeffed manors requiring some part of a knight service for them.
3) PK sould expect to have to deal with Inheritance tax for grants.
4) Conspicuous consumption is the expected norm, where holdings have Demesne Manors, they will be come with the expectation of how the income will be used, if you can afford to keep a herald why dont you, or have a few spear men in the entourage
5) Your own household knights may wish to get married resulting in increased upkeep.
6) Gift go back to the lord when you die.

A steward per geographically distinct holding, the wife, if married ,of course being the steward of the Home Manor?

I require my players to have a steward to every demesne manor. Their home may be administered by their wive (or by them self). All other land need someone else for it. Enfeoffed have their vassal, who gets the full income from this land. And demesne land needs a steward, who might be from your family but needs upkeep anyway (which reduces the income of this pice of land).
And the stewardship roll in winter phase has to be rolled with the skill of the respektive steward in charge.

That suits well for my purposes.

So the idea would be
1) improvements are for you home manor
2) Additonal manors grant should, most of the time, be enfoeffed manors requiring some part of a knight service for them.
3) PK sould expect to have to deal with Inheritance tax for grants.
4) Conspicuous consumption is the expected norm, where holdings have Demesne Manors, they will be come with the expectation of how the income will be used, if you can afford to keep a herald why dont you, or have a few spear men in the entourage
5) Your own household knights may wish to get married resulting in increased upkeep.
6) Gift go back to the lord when you die.

A steward per geographically distinct holding, the wife, if married ,of course being the steward of the Home Manor?


My own rulings, i.e. How-We-Do-Things-In-Our-Campaign:

1) Feel free to build in other manors as well. The Liege Lord likes to see improvements, since that increases the value of the estate and probably also income, meaning more inheritance tax (relief) for him and increased obligations.

2) Oh, definitely. We have seen one demesne manor being granted, and that was to a banneret marrying a sister of a Count, and also being a key ally.

3) Indeed they should. Also, the estate is normally held by the Lord for a year. Normally, not a huge deal as the PKs tend to die youngish (oldest might have hit 40), and of course, there is a good chance that an adult, knighted heir is already a household knight or something somewhere.

4) I don't mind the PKs hoarding some money, as they will need some for the inheritance tax and so forth, as well as paying for Universal Aid, etc. And there are always ways for the PKs to use that money. Conspicuous Consumption, alas, is not very cost effective. I have yet to see a player being tempted to use it. Pondering if it were to be £1 = 10 Glory, if they would go for it, instead. They might. You could even make it different past 100 Glory, so that £10 = 100 Glory, and after that, £1 = 1. That would prevent the PKs from buying thousands of Glory, but might tempt them to pay a bit extra. Probably still not enough to tempt my players, as it has tended to be money comes, money goes kind of game, and that extra would still be swamped by the normal Annual Glory, which is pretty high.

5) A very good way to reward loyalty and also get some points from Conspicuous Consumption, as the wife of the household knight acts as a lady in waiting for your lady wife. However, this is clearly a reward, and it would be a rare household knight who would exchange a secure upkeep of a household knight to the life of a mercenary knight with a family to support...

6) Of course they do. We have yet to see Gifts in our game, except a couple of pseudo-Gifts ('you have this manor to look after and collect its income, until the ward becomes a knight and inherits it'). Could use those more, good middle ground between not getting a manor and getting a granted manor.

7) Stewards. We pretty much follow the rule of thumb that as long as long as the manors are relatively close (within a day) and there are no more than a few of them, one Steward is enough. It is more of a gut feeling type of thing: easier for a steward to look after three manors all right next to one another, than to take care of two that are a day apart. I don't mind the PKs 'saving' some money from this, as the demesne manors are practically non-existent in our campaign, and I want them to make at least a small profit. Of course, high Stewardships and Arthur's Peace tends to ensure that good harvests are more common than bad, and looking over some record keeping for the past dozen years, it seems that the manors are producing, on average, somewhere between Normal and Good Harvest. Call it x1.25 = £1.5 extra per manor per year. Which means a knight of two manors could maintain himself and his family, on average, in Rich Knight status which sounds about right for me.

8) The re-estimating the estate's duties have not come up yet in our campaign, since the investments have been relatively few so far. The maximum that the Liege Lord can demand, without incurring the condemnation of the society at large for his grasping manner and likely having an successful appeal to overturn the decision sent to King Arthur by the aggrieved vassal, is 1 knight service / £6 income. This is to prevent the Liege Lord from 'gaming the system' by demanding an arbitrarily large service from the vassal, and hence making it impossible to comply, giving the Liege Lord an excuse to seize the land back for good. Which would basically erode the whole meaning of a Grant. Thus, a manor which is producing, on average, £12 / year, could be re-evaluated to bring two knights for the Liege Lord's army. In which case the math goes: £6 vassal + £4 household + £2 left over = probably a Rich Knight on most years, and has a household knight always in residence, even if the PK is adventuring. Smaller increases may bring demands to bring an extra mounted sergeant or extra footmen to the muster. Or course, if the Liege Lord is feeling especially generous (as Arthur usually is) or wants the vassal to have more money to spend on lifestyle etc (as Arthur probably does for his RTKs), this demand can be smaller.

I think one really needs to change the support levels to better drain coffers and be more realistic and therefore balanced.

SUPPORT (+ one time glory boost)
Impoverished Knight = £4, holdings none or less than a manor. (+500 glory when knighted)
Poor Knight = £6, holdings a manor. (+500 glory granted a fief)
Ordinary Knight = £12, holdings d3+1 manors (+500 glory when holding at least 2 manors)
Rich Knight = £24, holdings d6+4 manors (+500 glory when holding at least 5 manors)
Wealthy knight = £48, holdings d10+10 manors (+500 glory when holding at least 11 manors).

Knights who grant fiefs to other knights gain 6 glory per year per fief. Let them buy manors from lords at a cost of 14 times income = £84 = big drain of cash. They hold these directly from the king, and don't owe feudal service to lesser lords for them. do what I already suggested, allow knights to build all they want, but make it hard costly for them to convert the book income (which they can use for consumption as is) to cash. 1/2 income if converted to cash.

Make some or all of the manors they're granted be held as just precarious benefices instead of hereditary fiefs and make dowry manors from non-heiresses normally just perpetual benefices held only for their and their wife's life, thus discouraging improvements to them. Give players the option of starting as household knights with d3+4 more character generation points, but holding a manor a precarious benefice rather than a fief.

Characters who fail to maintain their support lose the glory from that grade of wealth and fall to the level they're supporting, until they support their true level and conspicuously consume an amount equal to the deficit.


His wife/steward's roll changes income per manor by: success £8; critical £4 on a critical; failure £6 ; fumble equals £4. Modify income by a quick weather roll on d20: 1 (-£4); 2-10 (-£2); 11-19 (+£2); 20 (+£4)

What I have found in our campaign... As long as you avoid demesne manors (i.e. a manor without a knight service attached) and clustering the manors too closely together, the extra income from the manors is rather slight.

Extra manor:
+£6 income on an average year
-£4 household knight
-£2 steward
= £0 on an average year

Granted, that more skilled steward usually means that the fief makes around £1.5 / year profit over long-term, as some of the years are better. Also if some of the PK extra manors are close-by, the PKs can collaborate, reducing the costs of the stewards. But in general, 1 extra manor is enough to push a PK to Rich status, and two extra manors means he can reach for Superlative one. There could be an extra step between Rich and Superlative, and push Superlative to x3 (£18). Which would take closer to 6 extra manors.

Investments can cause a problem, if they are allowed to proliferate without any limits. In our campaign, the counter-pressure has come from the possibility of raids from Levcomagus and other enemies of PKs. This often causes building projects to falter, or even burns some investments up. Manorial Luck can destroy investments, too. The small investments take time to build, and the big investments take a lot of capital. And are risky, if something goes wrong. Sure, over long-term, investments are likely to make a profit, like they should. Encouraging players to build enhancements to drain the income or hire more soldiers to guard those investments restores the balance nicely again.

And in the end, gold hoarded is gold not influencing the campaign. :)

4) I don't mind the PKs hoarding some money, as they will need some for the inheritance tax and so forth, as well as paying for Universal Aid, etc. And there are always ways for the PKs to use that money. Conspicuous Consumption, alas, is not very cost effective. I have yet to see a player being tempted to use it. Pondering if it were to be £1 = 10 Glory, if they would go for it, instead. They might. You could even make it different past 100 Glory, so that £10 = 100 Glory, and after that, £1 = 1. That would prevent the PKs from buying thousands of Glory, but might tempt them to pay a bit extra. Probably still not enough to tempt my players, as it has tended to be money comes, money goes kind of game, and that extra would still be swamped by the normal Annual Glory, which is pretty high.



Yes, true to the just put the money into glory bit, I was more thinking of Live the hihgest lifestyle one can afford and support those extra followers for you entourage to show you can. It is something hard to have the Players get what you would want a Valet if you could afford one

Yes, true to the just put the money into glory bit, I was more thinking of Live the hihgest lifestyle one can afford and support those extra followers for you entourage to show you can. It is something hard to have the Players get what you would want a Valet if you could afford one


I did intend it more as 'all the money you spend above the norm to lifestyle, followers and enhancements', yes.

Imagine this:
The Annual Glory you get comes from the money you spend above the norm for a vassal knight (= £6) to your lifestyle, followers and enhancements. You do not get (or the amount is reduced) Annual Glory from anywhere else.

Up to £10 extra spending = +10 Glory / £1
£11 - £20 extra spending = 100 + 5 Glory / £1 above £10, i.e. £15 would be 100 + 25 = 125, and £20 = 150.
£21 - £40 extra spending = 150 + 5 Glory / £2 above £20, i.e. £32 would be 150 + 30 = 180, and £40 = 200.
Above £40 extra spending = 200 + 1 Glory / £1 above £40, to a maximum of 1000 (at £840, a ducal / kingly level).

If the amount of Glory you get from Traits, Passions and Chivalric/Religious is curtailed to some smallish number, such as 5 per Trait over 16+, 25 Glory for Chivalric and abolish Religious altogether (they already get 5*5 = 25 from their religious traits), then your average PK knight is struggling to get more than 50 Annual Glory from other sources, and spending lavishly will suddenly become a lot more appealing. Not to mention the much better exchange rate (10 Glory for £1) at first. Whereas now, the £1 = 1 Glory exchange rate is simply not worth it. Free Glory is appreciated, but this is totally swamped by being Chivalrous.

All of you have really good ideas about what to do and I am Laughing my head off at your idea's here is how I handle it in my game The starting PC is granted one manor at the begging of his character creation this is his inheritance his father left him and is his home all others must be granted by the king plain and simple and if they ask for more then one the king asks why do you need more then 1 manor to support your family one is enough but should you like to prove your self to me then I have an adventure for you and make them play this Adventure I guarntee you they will be like dam the king's harsh to day, he counties and says sense you want more land i shall grant it too on the following conditions. 1 you must Garrison a castle for me if you do the castle and lands are yours should you fail you forfeit your current manor and must live as an impervished knight for the rest of your life. 2) You must have brought the castle up to full functioning level in five years time from now failure to do so will result in your forfeit of the castle. So what say you my young knight you game for becoming a minor landholder of a castle? he asks and says before you can ask it why yes you may ask your fellow pc knights for help and he names them off one by one asking if them if they will help you if they say yes he says with a laugh Now then for all you player knights who said yes to helping the king says then you forfeit all your manors to me and throw your lot in with him points at the pc who asked for more land and says he is now your lord as I am now his lord and master, and so I High King so and so (insert king's name) bequeath one castle and all its land to thee pc knight who asked for a period of five years from this date the castle and land of CASTLE WAKELY now make all the player knights who said yes change their loyalty lord from the king or their liege lord to the pc who asked for more land for he is their lord is now their liege lord and all their former lords have now turn their back on them for siding against them and the king for asking for more land, and force them to play this adventure out if they get mad and quiet then so be it but tell them it will be waiting for them if they should decide to return for their family's and all they own are moving to the castle by order of the king and will be inforced by the kings knights and the sheriff to comply or be imprisoned for treason against the crown, and ask them so do you comply and move or not asks the sheriff? you can agrure you said you love your family will you let them starve with no protection? basicly throw back at them all the reaosn they gave you for improving thier manors the king and shrieff uses this to steal their land and puts them enterprising knights in their place.

This adventure can be found online here http://www.rpgarchive.com/index.php?page=adv1&advid=243

what the king does not tell them nor they know till they get here that This ancient decaying castle and sits restlessly between two large hillocks that stand guard to a large, fertile but untended valley. It was abandoned years ago when the last lord of the castle threw himself off its great battlements, and the The castle's vast empty halls should echo menacingly when players first arrive. Let them know this will not be a simple task. All they have is the shell of the ancient castle, a supply train and a group of peasants. They must set up to survive a possibly devastating winter. All the details will be under their control, from perimeter defenses to choosing the priest for the new church. This is a lot of work; make the players do it for you. Lastly, in addition to normal campaign activity, they have the castle itself to deal with. this usually fixes enterprising knights because now all that income they generated now goes to the king and their left with an empty decaying castle.

This Adventure was republished for fourth edition in the GK2720, Tales of Chivalry and Romance (1999) by Green Knight Publications I do recomind this book as I use it all the time in my campaigns.

Now assuming you do the above mentioned adventure to your enterprising knights The Adventure Castle Wakely

Their main goal is to secure the castle and bring it and surrounding lands to 5 pop basically 1 pop per year till its fully functional failure to do so results in the king taking back the grant in five years. I award 50 glory per year flat for garrison duty of castle so at best the least amount of glory they will get is 50 per knight per year that helps in reoccupying the castle. Let the Knights do what ever they want to improve the castle if you want to be nice you can say your wives have all saved some money and goods to help as each one arrives thus what ever they had left over from their manors the previous years they kept and my spend on the castle improvements, but only what their wives saved roll a steward check for each wife if they make their rolls award them 1 Libra per number of the check saved from last years income use which ever is less ie the money on the sheet or the dice roll if they crut they get to keep thier entire treasure from last year as saying the king wanted your improved lands not your money Also You can tell them that charter stats they don't have to pay any taxes for five years to their king he feels them enterprising knights will need it to improve their castle and new lands. ie again the king does not want your money but your improved lands. This also tells them that so by improving your land the king decides to take it for him self after all he did not invest any money into and gets a nice income off it ie the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. Yes meaning you enterprising young pc knights.

Now the nice thing about this is for the game master is this one forces the players to help you develop a castle for you to use latter and gives you the back drop to create certain quests that can interfare in the restoration of the castle After all sometimes holding on to land is just as difficult as gaining it was. This can be also a nice starting point for new gm's who are just starting out. What book do I use for this I know will be the next question? I use the CHA2719, Lordly Domains (1997) book from 4th edition it has all the rules detailing the reestablishment of the castle and local population. It is also another book I would recremend highly to new players but thinking that it may have been covered in the new The Pendragon PDF Book's greg sells on his website I do not have any of those at this time.

Lordly domains is not considered canon by Greg :(

Huh, I have never allowed my PKs to build manorial improvements other than at their primary manor. I thought that was in the rules, but maybe I just assumed it was.

Improvements are only built on the lord's caput major — his main holding where he makes his home.


T.