According to the Book of the Estate, a knight receives 1 Glory for 1 DV of his manor. Assuming one of my PK is appointed castellan of a stout little motte by his lord, who would get the Glory: The lord or the knight?

I would currently rule that DV is collected by the knight ruling the castle, and not the one legally owning it.

I would rule that glory goes to the one that is a player knight. The other one doesn't interest me (when tracking glory)

My reply would be: Both.

If you consider the way the landholding glory is calculated, it is based on the whole estate, enfeoffed (= given to vassal knights) and demesne lands both. I don't see the difference in castle holding: The Lord owns it and collects Glory for it; the Knight is the caretaker/castellan and picks up office holding (castellan) glory for it equal to the DV, too.

I would rule that glory goes to the one that is a player knight. The other one doesn't interest me (when tracking glory)

In my specific case both are player knights, so this is not really an option unless I do it like Morien suggested:


My reply would be: Both.

Morien, I think you are right, but only in principle. Glory is not a zero-sum game and in the case of landholding, both the liege and the vassal profit from it.

However, I have some strong concerns from a gaming point of view. If I allow an estate holder to acquire additional Glory when building castles on his land, it will give the player a strong incentive to build more castles as quickly as possible to receive more annual glory. For example, a simple motte-and-bailey castle costs L36 for a combined DV of 18. Which means that you have a glory return of 0.5/£. After four year, this investment will pay out more glory than outrageous consumption, which has a return of 2/£1.

In my opinion, ruling to give a DV bonus for all fortification on one's estate would have a strong impact on the British landscape. Note that this might be a good thing :-)

After having re-read the rules (BoE p. 75), a player should only build improvements (and collect advantages) on his chief manor. This does not mean that the rest of his estate is undeveloped, but it is outside of the scope of the landholding simulation. If I read this correctly, it also means that you can only ever receive the DV Glory bonus for improvements build in your own chief manor. In this case, the castellan would not receive any Glory for the castle he manages, unless it also is his chief manor.

My new take on this will probably be to house-rule that castellans holding another lord's caslte (and staying there most of the year) will receive the DV bonus on top of their officier's Glory bonus to give them a small added incentive, but that you otherwise only receive the DV bonus for a manor if it's your own Caput Major.

Your suggestion of only giving Glory for the Caput Major would work and be in accordance with the general instructions of BotE when it comes to building stuff. Some other ideas below.


One thing is that you are supposed to get royal permission for building an actual castle. So you can't just dot all the landscape with castles (except during Anarchy).

The other thing is that logically, the fortifications would need:
1) Garrisons. Ungarrisoned castles are not in use and hence would not generate any Glory, IMHO. Normally not a problem for the Caput Major, but might be a problem for each individual outlying manor.
2) Upkeep. This was in BotM, but I think it was dropped to make things simpler. However, you could easily introduce it in your game, if you wanted. Like 20% per year for the wooden construction and 10% for stone construction (probably a bit high, but hey, as a first guess).

Third option would be to amend the other Glory sources, for example:
1) Outrageous consumption: 5 Glory / £1 up to 100 Glory (£20) and 1 Glory / £1 afterwards.
2) Other constructions: 2 Glory per £1 maintenance (I think it is currently closer to 1 Glory per £1)
3) Or even, drop the fortification Glory to DV/2, and that makes the Castle Glory less competitive even relatively short term.

Finally, it is not that big of a deal. A single motte-and-bailey castle giving ~20 Glory per year means that it takes 50 years to get a Glory Bonus Point. It is roughly equivalent to having one trait/passion at 16+. It won't break the game. (Now a Chivalric & Religious knight getting 400+ passive Glory per year is much more of a problem...)