I've been fiddling around with the rules for estates and warlords to try to get this right. I could use some help.

I need to create an estate (or multiple-manor holding) for a family of player knights.

Basically, the estate as it is, consists of three manors (by the old system £6 manors) and one burnt down manor which served as the old estate capital. So, what I am guessing is that the estate should be held around £30. And if the holder decides to rebuild the old manorial grounds and farms, it can rise to as much as £40-50.

So, to put it together:

1. There is one old central manor, Tisbury, burned down and taken over by the wild forest. Needs to be rebuilt.
2. There are three other manors, Dinton, Baverstock, Barford.
3. Dinton currently works as Great Hall.
4. Villages, hovels and similar are flexible.
5. The Estate needs to add up to around £30 (flexible) and support three knights, including the lord.
6. If the old estate Hall is rebuild (Tisbury) the estate should be around £40, perhaps a bit more at most.
7. There are more old family manors and villages around that could possibly be added in the future.

How should I construct the estate? I'm having trouble combining Warlord and Estate to an estate of this size. A little creativity perhaps? :D

In our campaign, the question of what the initial estates should look like generated a lot of discussion. In our case, the players decided that they wanted to represent the heads of different vassal knight families in the County. We wanted these families to be powerful enough to have significant standing in the Earl's Court. I also wanted to make the holdings as historically realistic as possible. The GM and I (as the 'Campaign Steward', i.e. bookkeeper) settled on Estates worth £50-60, with a caput manor worth £15-25. It ended up that each estate consisted of three to five manors. I used the Book of the Estate as a guideline for how we structured estates - manors, towns, villages, endowments etc. We also wanted some variety for the estates, so they varied quite a bit geographically speaking. Some were closely located, while others were spread out across as many as three hundreds in Salisbury.

Over time, our knights earned glory and rewards from Earl Roderick. In 490, two of the knights particularly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Lindsey, and earned themselves Bannerets. The economics for the estates were complicated, but managable with me tracking and reporting the records for the holdings, and the GM focusing on the campaign. Luckily, a couple of weeks later, the Book of the Warlord was released, greatly simplifying my 'bookkeeping'.

Each of the families now has at least two honours and customary revenues of double what they started with. The first honour is the family estate (their original manors, held from the Earl of Salisbury in perpetuity), and the second is either a banneret (with related hundred court revenues) or some other honour that is being held at the Earl's pleasure or for life. What's interesting is the various ways that the players have each pursued different paths to developing their holdings. We have new motte-and-bailey castles, a brewery (not covered in the rules, but appreciated by the players) and even a small mercenary company that's moving from contract to contract.

We are about to start 495, and the GM and I are looking forward to the aftermath of the Battle of St. Albans and the turmoil that that will bring to our players' prosperous little holdings.

Some suggestions:

a. Use Warlord's economic system - It's much easier to manage.
b. An Honour should consist of one or more estates, and an Estate should consist of a few Manors. At the start of a campaign (assuming 485), that's probably one estate and three to five manors. By the time that your players become Barons (if that's the direction that you choose to go), you may decide to abandon Manors altogether and replace them with Hundreds (examples in the Book of the Warlord) and simply focus of Honours made up of Estates of Hundreds.
c. Re: Improvements and developments - We've limited improvements to one of a given improvement on each Honour. There are a couple exceptions (weirs, sheep herds, etc), but this keeps a lid on the amount of work to maintain the holdings and keeps the economics from overpowering the adventuring in the campaign.

Hope this helps!

Basically, the estate as it is, consists of three manors (by the old system £6 manors) and one burnt down manor which served as the old estate capital. So, what I am guessing is that the estate should be held around £30. And if the holder decides to rebuild the old manorial grounds and farms, it can rise to as much as £40-50.


Congratulations, you have created an estate. :)

Seriously, if you have WARLORD, and want to get away easily, you already have the information you need: "How big an estate do I want? Lord + 3 household knights." From both ESTATE and WARLORD you have 1 knight per £10 estate 'value' (Customary Revenue). And if you wish to make it easy for yourself, you can ignore all the other flavors of income.

You have 4 knights altogether, so the estate's value should be around £40. You can divide that as you please between the manors. You had three manors, so lets say £18, £12, £10, which total that £40. (I'll talk about the £30 case afterwards.)

From WARLORD, you can then calculate the pertinent information:
Army: 4 knights (including Lord) + 12 foot soldiers.
Discretionary Fund: 10% = £4
Standard of Living: 10% + £5 = £4 + £5 = £9 = Rich (KAP 5.1 p. 157)

So your estate-holder would be living as a rich knight, have £4 per year to spend willy-nilly, and live as a Rich Knight. Superlative if he is sinking his extra income into his standard of living. If he manages to rebuild Tisbury, his extra income will jump enormously, but this should be very hard, time- and money-consuming effort.

However, taking your previous comment at full value, that the estate would originally be £30, and still require 4 knights, we see that the Lord is a bit strained to afford that until Tisbury is fixed up. In this case, you could divide the manors like £12, £10, £8 (or whatever), but the important bit is that it comes up to £30. Again, from WARLORD we know that £30 means that the budget allows for 3 knights. So:

Army: 3 knights (including Lord) + 9 footsoldiers.
Discretionary Fund: £3
Standard of Living: £3 + £5 = £8

A-ha, you might cry, the grant specified 4 knights, not 3! True. So the Lord needs to support another household knight (£4 / year, including squire and horses). Depending on the GM, this 'extra £4' can come from various sources. Were it me, I'd probably rule £2 from Discretionary Fund (reducing it to £1) and £1 each from Court and Family (Standard of Living). So you'll end up with a £30 estate, with a slightly reduced Court and Standard of Living of £7 (Ordinary) and Discretionary Fund £1, but with 4 knights and 9 footsoldiers. If you want 12 footsoldiers, you'll need to rustle up another £1.5 (lets take that out of Court, so the Court is at -£2.5 = equivalent of £20 estate's Court). This Lord is quite poor for his estate, with a modest Court and sharply curtailed Discretionary Fund, due to the heavy burden of supporting more knights than his estate is currently able to.

You can get much more complicated than this, rolling for some special features from ESTATE, and so forth. But then it can get more complicated in a hurry. You can even fiddle with the estate value; for example an estate of £35 would be 3.5 knights budgeted for, and ~11 footsoldiers, so you'd only need to come up with extra £2.5 to pay for the extra 'half-knight' and a footsoldier.

Hope that helped?

We've moved on a bit in the creation of the Estate (thanks for your help!).

This is what I've decided:

The Earl, in his great wisdom, has decided to grant the player knight the Tisbury Estate*. An estate that if fully rebuilt would be around £50, but currently stands at £30. The player lord will reside in the manor Dinton, planning to rebuild the old Manor Tisbury again. For this, the player will service the Earl with five knights, ten footsoldiers and five garrison men.

However, since the great honorable Earl Robert is such a nice guy, he has released the Lord from two of the knights service, considering the fact that the caput major is in ruins. (In legal terms, the player lord still owes them, but rebuilding Tisbury is considered a sort of payment, scutage, if you will.). The Earl will start demanding the knight services that are left, as soon as the Player Lord can afford it basically. The player will have to rebuild the entire Caput Major and surround village, and convince the villagers to come back. All in all it will probably cost hundreds of pounds. The player knight has been given right to use the forest (£3 each year) to aid in the rebuilding.

I am also considering that the Earl will build a fort (castle Wardour) further down the campaign in this region, if the player knights handle their relations with the Lord well. All to defend the region from Cornwall (in our campaign the relations between Cornwall and Salisbury is stretched, to say the least.) It's also possible that the region and hundreds will become a Barony futher down the road, since it was earlier. And the king owns land in the surrounding area. I am a bit unsure how this would work though.

We've split the estate in three parcels. One for Dinton (~£17), One for Baverstock & Barford (~£12) and Tisbury (£0). The last pound could perhaps come from other special rights and tolls in the region? I'm still a bit unsure about the differences of hundreds, manors, parcels and honours. Could a vassal to Earl Robert receive hundred court, or is that just for Barons? The players is NOT controlling an entire hundred.

There is one large village near Dinton (Streamford) and Several Hamlets near Baverstock & Barford (Stump and Hillside). There are also several places of note in the region.
* Fonthill, a large old hill, supposedly with an old tribal fort or building on it, nobody goes there.
* An old stone circle in the woods.
* Tisseberrie hill, an old burial-ground and location of the old Tisbury Caput Major currently in ruins.
* The Grotto. An old stone grotto deep in the forest, nobody goes there.

* In the large scheme of things, the land was "rewarded" to the player knights family form the King when they captured Prince Galegantis. But Arthur didn't want to split Salisbury further, and instead convinced the Earl to take the land back from the traitors that held it, and in turn grant it to the player knight. After all, the land was a part of Salisbury before anarchy, and should remain so. There was no reason to "take" the land from the Earl. And the player family wasn't really interested in other lands that his old family lands. This means the Player family now controls part of their old family lands, as vassals to Earl Robert.

I like limiting improvments. And I will likely limit it to one improvement per parcel/estate/honour or something similar.

It's also possible that the region and hundreds will become a Barony futher down the road, since it was earlier. And the king owns land in the surrounding area. I am a bit unsure how this would work though.


Depends. Normally, Barons are sworn to the King. After all, Counts/Earls and Dukes are also Barons. King of course could reward the PK with more lands and make him a Baron. But that title would be separate from the lands he is holding from the Earl as the Lord of Tisbury.

Are you sure that you are not thinking of a Banneretcy? I.e. an estate ruled over by a banneret? Four manors (even if £50 when Tisbury is restored) sounds quite small for a Barony...



We've split the estate in three parcels. One for Dinton (~£17), One for Baverstock & Barford (~£12) and Tisbury (£0). The last pound could perhaps come from other special rights and tolls in the region? I'm still a bit unsure about the differences of hundreds, manors, parcels and honours. Could a vassal to Earl Robert receive hundred court, or is that just for Barons? The players is NOT controlling an entire hundred.


To put it simply (see WARLORD for more details):
manor = basic economical unit (usually around £10, but can be more or less), consisting of a manor hall + surrounding villages etc.
hundred = an administrative region with a hundred court, consisting, usually, of several manors (but can be just one)
parcel = any piece of property with its associated rights, can be an estate, a manor, several manors, a hundred...
honour = a barony consisting, usually, of an estate (caput major) and several parcels.

The vassal can get the hundred court, if the liege lord holding that hundred court decides to grant it to the vassal. I would recommend not to bother with it. Nothing but sweat and tears results from Additional Income! :P

To put it simply (see WARLORD for more details):
...
parcel = any piece of property with its associated rights, can be an estate, a manor, several manors, a hundred...
honour = a barony consisting, usually, of an estate (caput major) and several parcels....


That's not the way that I understood the honour to be defined in BotW, but I've been known to be wrong before. Using the examples given in the book for Baron Thornbush, Count Salisbury and Duke of the Vale, I understood the Honour to be each 'parcel' that is granted as a unit (generally, but not necessarily, with a title). Earl Roderick is Count of Salisbury, an Elector of Logres, Baron of Anna's Water, Baron of the Ford of the Roe Deer and Baron of Kingstown. Each of those Honours is a unit or 'parcel' of holdings consisting of Castles, Hundreds, Estates and/or Manors.

In my KAP campaign (IMKAPC I guess), I've treated a Banneret as an Honour granted by Earl Roderick to a deserving player knight for life. Each of those Honours has a Title, i.e. Banner of Whatever, terms under which they've been granted like "held by Knight service, for life", and the component holdings. For a banneret, I've decided to have those consist of a hundred (for the purpose of court profits only) and one or more manors (most of which are in the banner hundred). Of course, as you've stated, an honour can be very large, like the Count of Salisbury's own honour, or quite compact. One of Duke Ulfius' honours is Hundred Lord of Bearhome Hundred. It's just one hundred with a render of 19.8 Livre.




The vassal can get the hundred court, if the liege lord holding that hundred court decides to grant it to the vassal. I would recommend not to bother with it. Nothing but sweat and tears results from Additional Income! :P


It is quite a bit of work, but also a great way to 'level' the estates between players. Because I drew the values of the manors in each of my player estates from values given in The Domesday Book, I did have some variation between estate values. I used a wide variety of additional income (tolls or timber rights for example) to balance the values of the player estates. They also make good intermediate sized rewards that the player knights can earn - more substantial than a gift of gold but not as much as a new manor or hundred. They also help add character to the holdings.

That's not the way that I understood the honour to be defined in BotW, but I've been known to be wrong before. Using the examples given in the book for Baron Thornbush, Count Salisbury and Duke of the Vale, I understood the Honour to be each 'parcel' that is granted as a unit (generally, but not necessarily, with a title). Earl Roderick is Count of Salisbury, an Elector of Logres, Baron of Anna's Water, Baron of the Ford of the Roe Deer and Baron of Kingstown. Each of those Honours is a unit or 'parcel' of holdings consisting of Castles, Hundreds, Estates and/or Manors.


You can have a honour which includes other honours. I said I was putting it simply. :)

Well, you could argue that in its most generic form, parcel would cover a whole honour as well. However, as far as WARLORD's land terminology (p. 165) is concerned, parcel is a sub-unit of an honour.

Let me give you an example:
Count Roderick is also the Baron of the Ford of the Roe Deer. This barony, associated with the Ford of the Roe Deer, is an honour. It consists of the following four parcels (note, plural):
1) Castle of the Ford of the Roe Deer, Thamesmouth
2) Rockstown Hundred, Ascalon
3) Highhome Hundred, Tribruit
4) “Diverse manors” (for simplicity, we will treat this as a single parcel, even though in principle, you should divide it up by county lines to get the number of outlier stewards you'd need)

Now, the honour of the Ford of the Roe Deer is part of the bigger honour, that of the Count of Salisbury. Count of Salisbury is one of the Great Nobles, and his honour is not the best possible one as an example. You'd be better off with the example given in Chapter IV, or, indeed, Baron Thornbush.



I used a wide variety of additional income (tolls or timber rights for example) to balance the values of the player estates.


Note that I said Additional Income, which is a specific type of Income (pure 'money', without workers etc. associated with it). It is not the same as the lower-case additional income in common parlance. The examples of tolls and timber rights add to the Assized Rent, which means that a manor of £8 + £2 toll rights is fully equivalent to a £10 manor without the toll rights; both are £10 Assized Rent. However, a manor of £8 + £2 court profits is NOT equivalent of the £10 manor, since the Production of the former is only £8 (= Assized Rent), while the latter is £10. You follow what I am saying?

Trust me, those Court Profits were a PAIN in WARLORD honour generation, and I'd whole-heartedly advise GMs who are not all that keen in all the details to simply ignore the above distinction between Assized Rent and Additional Income, and treat Additional Income as if it were Assized Rent...