Is it assumed or even encouraged that newly knighted PCs marry ASAP, ie making an attempt immediately after they are knighted?

If so how do they possibly have a shot at the more desirable Salisbury Ladys listed un the rulebook?

Also can some one clearly define the wife of a result of marrying below and within your social standing for a typical vassal knight?

Thanks

Is it assumed or even encouraged that newly knighted PCs marry ASAP, ie making an attempt immediately after they are knighted?

Encouraged, yes. Assumed, no. Basically it's a gamble between getting married quick to produce an heir, and taking time to find a more advantageous match.



If so how do they possibly have a shot at the more desirable Salisbury Ladys listed un the rulebook?

By waiting. Although this is risky as the knight could die off before producing an heir. (Alternately, a knight could keep a mistress as a safety net towards producing an heir.)

It some cases a knight might marry young, and find himself a widower, and thus available to remarry.

To win one of the desirable heiress from the KAP5 book, the knight would need to do something so that the Earl would favor the match. Getting the ladies approval is helpful, too, though not entirely necessary. As a GM, looking at it from the Earl's point of view, consider the ladies to be prizes (wealth, land, beauty) to be handed out to his most capable, and faithful vassals. Remember, all that extra wealth translates into more knights and better equipment on the battlefield. So, as the Earl, would you feel more comfortable or less if you game more power and glory to a particular character.



Also can some one clearly define the wife of a result of marrying below and within your social standing for a typical vassal knight?

I hope so, or at least I'll give it a try:

1) Marry below station: For a vassal knight, this is basically marrying a woman who is not of equal status, meaning that she is the (leginimate) daughter of a knight. In theory any low born woman would be below a knight's station, from some serf to a lady's servant.


2) Marry within Station: This means marry a woman who is noble born (the daugher of a knight or slightly better).

For a vassal knight, a suitable match should have a dowry of roughly equal value to that of the knight-basically a manor, some glory, and some wealth (libra). She might have more or less than this, but this is about the right ballpark.At the least should should have wealth equal to a year's salary for the knight.

What this means, in play, is that lesser ranking daughters, with little or no dowry are a poor match for a landed knight. They might be suitable for household knights, but a landed knight should be thinking of how to improve his situation.

3) Marrying above station: This refers to marrying a woman who is of higher ranking nobility than the knight. Typically such marriages are hard to arrange, since the knight doesn't have the wealth, resources, power and political connections to be a worthwhile match. Usually. In some cases a well connected or inordinately wealthy or powerful knight, might just be a worthwhile match. Such arrangements can be quite valuable to the knight in terms of both additional resources and powerful family ties. Marrying up, also can give the knight a toe hold in the rank structure, allowing him to move himself or, more likely, his offspring up the feudal ladder.

An example of doing this in the game would be if a knight were to somehow manage to marry the Earl's daughter Jenna. Not only would this give the knight a lot of land, wealth and power, but it also makes him a blood relation to the Earl. The knight is now family.

The reason why such a match is so unlikely is because Jenna is more useful to the Earl if she marries someone of equal status, providing the Earl with a bood tie to another noble of equal power.


4) The big loophole: By the rules that nobility can be "proven", some people may "prove" to be noble by their actions, manner, ir appearance. The common application of this, in legends, is that someone who slays a dragon would have proven his worth and be worthy of being knighted.

For women, exquisite manners and or appearance (high APP score) might be considered signs that she is noble by merit.

In all honesty, it is really just a loophole in the rules so that nobles can sidestep the normal conventions from time to time when it would suit them (a dragonslayer would prove a formidable prove a formidable asset in battle, and a beautiful woman would prove a formidable asset in other areas.)

Is it assumed or even encouraged that newly knighted PCs marry ASAP, ie making an attempt immediately after they are knighted?

If so how do they possibly have a shot at the more desirable Salisbury Ladys listed un the rulebook?

Also can some one clearly define the wife of a result of marrying below and within your social standing for a typical vassal knight?

Thanks


Atgxtg the Unpronouncable has answered this excellently.

I'll just add: this is all up to the player. There isn't a 'right' way.

The player chooses whether he wants to try to get married straight away (and some knights might not be able to afford the £1 gift each year, so they may have to wait).

The player must also choose between rolling for a bride now, saving up his successes for a better dowry later, or working within the campaign to win one of the better brides that can't be generated by that table.

There are pros and cons. It's a very good idea to get an heir as soon as possible, but it's also advantageous to have a as rich a bride as possible which will mean waiting, and risking getting nothing if the knight dies first.

IMO the best tactic is to marry early. Reason being is that you need an heir ASAP.

Your first wife is almost guaranteed to die in childbirth anyway (she has less than a 35% chance of lasting a decade), leaving you free to remarry. Yeah, it pretty cold, but that's the way life was (and why Romance became so popular).

Once you got a couple of sons you can be choosy.

Keep in mind that since a kinght's liege lord is also playing the politics/power game, the knight might get a match that does him no good at all, but might serve the liege in some way.

Your first wife is almost guaranteed to die in childbirth anyway (she has less than a 35% chance of lasting a decade), leaving you free to remarry.

This has happened to one of my players, and he has gotten very rich from the results. Using table 5-4 and 5-5 (KAP5, pg 109), this player has had a wife die every 1-3 years. He immediately re-marries the following year (mainly for the dowry and manors).
Because of this, his income has almost tripled the other player's income. It is now a running joke that players are hoping their wives die in childbirth.

Your first wife is almost guaranteed to die in childbirth anyway (she has less than a 35% chance of lasting a decade), leaving you free to remarry.

This has happened to one of my players, and he has gotten very rich from the results. Using table 5-4 and 5-5 (KAP5, pg 109), this player has had a wife die every 1-3 years. He immediately re-marries the following year (mainly for the dowry and manors).
Because of this, his income has almost tripled the other player's income. It is now a running joke that players are hoping their wives die in childbirth.


I saw this happen with a PK in one of my campaigns, too. Not all manors are grants, so he didn't get to keep them all, but the glory and libra still add up. It was reaching the point where other PCs didn't want to marry off daughters to him as it was something like a death sentence.

Lol, yes. I was that player in one game. I was on my fifth wife by the time my character died, and people did joke (out of character!) about how I must be bumping them off.

In my opinion, one of the pitfalls it is easy to fall into early in the campaign is to make it too easy for the player knights to marry the eligible heiresses listed in the Pendragon rulebook. Perhaps it's because these are the only eligible ladies named in the rulebook? Whatever the reason, I read about a lot of campaigns where the player knights seem to accumulate quite a few manors early in the campaign by marrying heiresses who die in childbirth and repeating the cycle. This certainly happened in my first Pendragon campaign.

In my new campaign, I am trying to emphasise the idea that a marriage to an heiress is a reward for truly spectacular loyal service to your lord - especially if you're already a vassal knight with a manor of your own. I also don't plan on allowing player knights to marry another heiress if their first land-holding wife dies in childbirth - their lord will have already rewarded them for their service with their first wife's land, and it makes more sense from the lord's perspective to "share the wealth" around a little rather than create too many large landholders in his county. This makes sense for the lord in-character, and also makes sense from an out-of-character perspective as a gamesmaster trying to keep an approximate equality between the player knights so as to avoid nasty conflicts within the group and to make sure everybody gets a chance to shine.

I recall that by the end of the first decade of my first ever Pendragon campaign, two of the player knights had the holdings of bannerets simply through marrying a series of rich heiresses and widows who ended up dying in childbirth. Another player, whose knight had won his only additional manor through "feat of arms", and whose wife had faithfully produced children without event over the same time period, seemed like the poor cousin by comparison.

I never make it routine to marry one of those heiresses, sometimes probably too hard, and so have the GMs I have played with.

If it's too hard, players will just take the default roll, and accumulate those manors anyway - especially if brides die. So those heiresses should be achievable, though the timescale would depend on their success. I like to use a slightly modified version of the romance rules.

I agree that it is preferable for player knights to try to marry one of the "named heiresses" as opposed to accumulate manors through random marriages from the table in chapter 5 of the rulebook. I think I confused the point of my post a bit by fixating on the named heiresses! I am planning on modifying rolls on the random marriage table for marriages past the first (if the first marriage had a dowry of a manor at least) in my new campaign - it hasn't come up yet as we have just started, but no doubt in a few game years it will. I am happy with my players obtaining manors through marriage, I just don't want them obtaining new manors every several years because their wives die in childbirth and they're free to marry again.

The talk of knights who had five wives reminds me of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI and (Orthodox) church opposition to his third and fourth marriages. If I recall the Emperor only risked these religiously disapproved of marriages because he didn't have an heir. Has anybody's campaign ever seen religious disapproval of the third/forth/fifth/xth marriage? If so, how did it work and did it add to the campaign?

I just don't want them obtaining new manors every several years because their wives die in childbirth and they're free to marry again.

Bear in mind that they won't necessarily keep the lands of the widow.
Let's say they marry, the wife bears a son. The wife dies.
Later, that son dies.
Now, the wife's family reclaims the land - the knight no longer has the tie to it.

It's hard keeping getting sons and keeping them alive. I've never had a problem with knights accumulating too much land through marriage, though our definition of too much land may differ.

For instance, I fully expect during the anarchy, one or more player knights to gain several manors through conquest or adventure (like the medbourne adventure),m and maybe much more - like one of the three parts of the duchy of Rydychan.

If players are getting 2, 3, 5, or 10 manors through marriage, I wouldn't sweat it. You can introduce plots to get that land taken away from them by the wife's family, or have robber knights take a distant manor from them, forcing them to try to regain them or risk losing honour. Later in the campaign, the player will probably divide the estate, giving younger sons some of it. [/quote]


The talk of knights who had five wives reminds me of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI and (Orthodox) church opposition to his third and fourth marriages. If I recall the Emperor only risked these religiously disapproved of marriages because he didn't have an heir. Has anybody's campaign ever seen religious disapproval of the third/forth/fifth/xth marriage? If so, how did it work and did it add to the campaign?


I haven't, because it does happen so rarely. Players made fun of my characters wife-slaughtering, because having so many deaths was the exception rather than the rule. A 'lucky' player may get 3 wives, most will have 1-2. Every now and then a character will have more than that - but it's not frequent enough to really introduce rules for IMO. Especially with the story possibilities it creates- that's 3, 4, or 5 extra families that can call on the player, often against each other!

Thanks all - really great insight.

I'll encourage my players to gain a wife quickly and secure their family I think.

(Snip)

The talk of knights who had five wives reminds me of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI and (Orthodox) church opposition to his third and fourth marriages. If I recall the Emperor only risked these religiously disapproved of marriages because he didn't have an heir. Has anybody's campaign ever seen religious disapproval of the third/forth/fifth/xth marriage? If so, how did it work and did it add to the campaign?


The church usually only got involved when it was brought to their attention. That usually only happened for political or revenge reasons. So, if you wanted to add this element into your campaign you could have the family of the second (third, fourth, etc.) wife have their younger son (or a cousin, uncle), who happens to be a deacon, priest, bishop, or whatever in the church to disallow the marriage because of consanguinity (which tended to be easy to prove since there were so many instances of of it among the nobility) or some other offense (heck, accuse the bride of using witchcraft to catch her new husband (then see if she floats like a duck)). I think this could add a lot of adventure to the campaign as the character has to travel (an adventure in itself) to the next higher authority (bishop, archbishop, the Pope?) who may set them on a quest or two to gain their support.

Thanks all - really great insight.

I'll encourage my players to gain a wife quickly and secure their family I think.


The pressure drops off considerable once the have a son or three. Things like mistresses or making a Lustful check at a fest and going off with a serving girl have actually kept some families going in campaigns.


Back in first edition, knights started off as household knights, and really had to earn some land and a good wife. Probably 2/3rd of the PCs failed to do so before meeting the grim reaper. Most of my players went through several characters before they got enough children to carry on the family. Some of my players got frustrated, and it did affect their enjoyment.

I think the main reason why later editions get the characters knighted and married ASAP is to avoid just such an occurrence and secure a family line. Players can always explore other options through backup characters.

I have found that the likelyhood of wife death and the marriage table produce 1) an attitude in players on the lines off "I hope she dies this year" and 2) an inevetible march toward banneret status for all PCs. Both things are bad, 1) in terms of roleplaying and 2) in terms of power and riches (with three manors, you can live superlative every year which leads to hugh broods of children that reach adulthood).

Nowdays I use the alternative child birth tables (http://www.gspendragon.com/newchildbirthtables.html). I also allow all women a CON roll if they are supposed to die, ie Cymric women survive anyway if they roll 14 or lower. This means that women have a fighting chance of reaching age 50 - with the childbirth table they are all doomed to die. It also means that it is now longer more dangerous to be a lady (10% death chance each year) than to be a knight (which is humours, but in the wrong way).

Furthermore, a huge amount of bannerets makes little sense. A lord has a lot of household knights he need to reward, sooner or later. He need to dangle rich hieresses before them to make them give their utmost in his service. He gains nothing by giving a landed knight an extra manor. So the marriage table is gone in my campaing. No PC can expect to reach above vassal kninght status, it would requre extraordinary luck, skill and roleplay to gain a second manor. This has a further benefit: Book of the Manor works best if each player have one manor.

I have found that the likelyhood of wife death and the marriage table produce 1) an attitude in players on the lines off "I hope she dies this year" and 2) an inevetible march toward banneret status for all PCs. Both things are bad, 1) in terms of roleplaying and 2) in terms of power and riches (with three manors, you can live superlative every year which leads to hugh broods of children that reach adulthood).

1) Yes, I've seen that.

2) It shouldn't happen. Manors gained through marriage do not necessarily pass down through the knight as a grant, but are gifts that leave with the wife. So most of the time the knight will lose the extra manors when the wife dies. A son, however, might be able to inherit the lands. So bannercy is not assured.





Nowdays I use the alternative child birth tables (http://www.gspendragon.com/newchildbirthtables.html). I also allow all women a CON roll if they are supposed to die, ie Cymric women survive anyway if they roll 14 or lower. This means that women have a fighting chance of reaching age 50 - with the childbirth table they are all doomed to die. It also means that it is now longer more dangerous to be a lady (10% death chance each year) than to be a knight (which is humours, but in the wrong way).

The really funny this is that the mortaility rate in the game is not far from reality. Childbirth was the leading cause of death among women up until farily recently, and it is still high up on the list.

I do agree though that CON probably should factor into it, at least somewhat.




Furthermore, a huge amount of bannerets makes little sense. A lord has a lot of household knights he need to reward, sooner or later. He need to dangle rich hieresses before them to make them give their utmost in his service. He gains nothing by giving a landed knight an extra manor. So the marriage table is gone in my campaing. No PC can expect to reach above vassal kninght status, it would requre extraordinary luck, skill and roleplay to gain a second manor. This has a further benefit: Book of the Manor works best if each player have one manor.


First off, assuming you read 2) above you'll notice that autobannercy is not assured.

Secondly, household knight do not need to be rewarded with rich heiress. Rewarded, yes, But not necessairly landed. Many Knights did remained household knights throughout their careers.

And the liege lord does gain quite a bit by rewarding landed knights with additional manors. Landed knights are quite valuable, and very loyal. The have to be, since they are the ones with the most to loose. Their whole family is riding on the success of their liege lord. They are also the knights who bring the largest number of fighters to battle. A typical landed knight probably has a half dozen other knights that he can muster. These knights also happen to be about a tenth of the liege's total forces. So rewarding a land holder with more land helps to ensure loyalty and pleases a power block within the county.

Can we elaborate on the reasons for manors coming with marriage not going to a male heir? I'm fuzzy on this... are inherited manors generally only those held by the male side of the family with female side manors (as dowry or whatever) defaulting back to her father's family?

Sure. Some manors are grants, meaning that they can be passed down from the recipient to their heirs, and others are gifts, meaning that they are given to the recipient for the duration of their life.

This raises some possible stumbling blocks for the potential banneret. The first is that he is not the recipient of the gift/grant-his wife is. He does get to control it, sort of (the wife usually handles the stewardship).

Now if the land is a grant, it will pass down to heirs, ut it is possible that there might be someone with a stronger claim than the husband. Especially if the lady is a widow and has a son who would one day inherit. Some manors might even go to an eldest daughter as part of her dowery.

If the lady's manor(s) are a gift, rather than a grant, they go back to the liege lord upon her death. In that case, the knight would loose those manors.

It all depends on just what the conditions are.

Ok, I have some questions on the topic.

I haven't thrown myself into books or essays on the subject- so forgive me if the answers to my questions are dead simple.

1. Wouldn't a landless bachelor knight marry above his station if he got a wife with manors included in her dowry? Ergo, isn't the random marriage table suited for landed knights only?
2. Is it not exceptional for a landed knight to receive more manors than he already had prior to the marriage through the dowry?

As stated I haven't bent my head around the inner workings of feudal marriages - but it just feels like you won the lottery - medieval style - if you cash in manors this way. And lottery rhymes badly with a feudal system where land is power and marriages often political – to me that is. But I might have missed some very important point (besides that it is just a random table in a game and not an essay necesarly based on historical facts).

To me it’s like water – water will always take the shortest and simplest way down a slope/hill/cliff or whatever. The same with people – if the simplest way to power for a noble is to randomly marry and then hope for her to die in childbirth so that he can remarry – and if this option is open for all - well then Henry VIII must be the paragon of powerplay (well he was - wasnt he ;)).

Surely the number of knights in your family, your present holdings, and such would play a greater roll into how big a dowry you get then courtesy-rolls at court? Even if it’s a generalized set of rules for gaming purposes.

Heck, maybe I should see if I can put together a few marriage tables that take current army and holdings into account, Instead of harassing you fine people with my perception on the topic. But maybe I have totally misinterpreted the feudal logic behind marriage and dowries - so Ill put my neck out there and fire away.

Hurray’s and blessings to anyone/everyone that enlighten me on these issues.

Tnx.

A landless knight marrying an heiress is technically marrying "within his class," but in practice I wouldn't allow this to be done with rolls; I'd treat it as marrying upward and require roleplaying. The table as it is is an abstraction of the politics involved in getting a rich wife if you don't want to roleplay it out, find an heiress and court her guardian.

Similarly, if a banneret is looking for a wife, he has two options:

1: Roll as a normal vassal knight and take what he can get.
2: Find a richer heiress and court her guardian.

Simply put, any heiress with three or more manors is Serious Business. They're not going to be given away in, as you put it, a lottery; they're going to be given for their guardian's advantage.
---
That said, yes, you can marry wives, impregnate them and hope for them to die quickly after producing an heir, then move on to the next wife. If you don't care about your Love (family) passion, you can even Bluebeard them (though Pendragon explicitly makes this a Very Bad Idea even if you can get away with it).

1. Wouldn't a landless bachelor knight marry above his station if he got a wife with manors included in her dowry? Ergo, isn't the random marriage table suited for landed knights only?

Yes. Note that the default game assumes that all PKs are landed.


2. Is it not exceptional for a landed knight to receive more manors than he already had prior to the marriage through the dowry?

Yes. Note that you have to roll well (18+) to get more than one manor in the dowry and the maximum you can get without marrying above your station (ie requires role playing or exceptional circumstances) is two manors.

Regards
Luke

1. Wouldn't a landless bachelor knight marry above his station if he got a wife with manors included in her dowry? Ergo, isn't the random marriage table suited for landed knights only?


Basically, yes.



2. Is it not exceptional for a landed knight to receive more manors than he already had prior to the marriage through the dowry?


Yes.




As stated I haven't bent my head around the inner workings of feudal marriages - but it just feels like you won the lottery - medieval style - if you cash in manors this way. And lottery rhymes badly with a feudal system where land is power and marriages often political – to me that is. But I might have missed some very important point (besides that it is just a random table in a game and not an essay necesarly based on historical facts).


And was designed to be good to player characters.
I don't think it was a good decision now, though.



Surely the number of knights in your family, your present holdings, and such would play a greater roll into how big a dowry you get then courtesy-rolls at court? Even if it’s a generalized set of rules for gaming purposes.


Yes.
Or just start with a more likely table, like this one that I use for marriages in my game.

Get a Wife Table
01-05 Wealthy Commoner
06-10 Lower ranked wife
11-20 equally ranked
21-25 equal rank, land
26-30 higher ranked

Or just start with a more likely table, like this one that I use for marriages in my game.

Get a Wife Table
01-05 Wealthy Commoner
06-10 Lower ranked wife
11-20 equally ranked
21-25 equal rank, land
26-30 higher ranked



Hey you left off the modifiers to the d20 roll, again! You did the same thing with the "Adventure of the Sword in the Stone". ;)

Seriously, my players started whining last session when I hinted that a new marriage table might appear soon. They barely stopped whining in time for all the weddings that suddenly broke out. ;D

Find a way to channel a Passion on the roll! ;D

Find a way to channel a Passion on the roll! ;D


"She's got huge...tracts of land!" ;D

...You know, I really should have expected that one.

No one expects the etc etc etc

Lets not go there. It's such a silly place.

Re: Marriage Chart-I guess we need to work out the dowry and manor amounts. The new table for noble marriages should help.

Lets not go there. It's such a silly place.

Re: Marriage Chart-I guess we need to work out the dowry and manor amounts. The new table for noble marriages should help.

Why not use the same table?

fg,
Thijs

Why not use the same table?

fg,
Thijs


Well for starters because none of the existing tables go up to 30. Using the KAP marriage table is out, since it doesn't match up, with 80% of wives having at least 1 manor. We would need to introduce some landless wives with suitable glory and dowry, and some "higher station" wives as well.

As it currently stands, the new table would appear to match up as follows:

01-05 Wealthy Commoner (1d6+6L goods, 10 Glory)
06-10 Lower ranked wife (???)
11-20 equally ranked (???)
21-25 equal rank, land (1 manor, 1d6+3L goods, 50 Glory)
26-30 higher ranked (??? either of the 2 manor wives would worrk, or maybe borth if we subdivided this)




terms and would basically mean having the same problem (knights getting more manors through marriage) that Greg wrote the new table to avoid.


The WIfe for Tennant in Chief won't work for knights. The land distribution goes from 1/10th the husband's to 3/4 the husband's. While "half a manor" or three quarters might be a possible unit, 1/10th of a manor isn't. Also the WftC table covers land, not other forms of wealth.





is a possible unit, I find it a bit klunky.

Find a way to channel a Passion on the roll! ;D


"She's got huge...tracts of land!" ;D




Greed (Land) - starting value 6D6 + 12

Find a way to channel a Passion on the roll! ;D


"She's got huge...tracts of land!" ;D




Greed (Land) - starting value 6D6 + 12

No, Amor (Lady or Damosel with Land)! :o

One of the funny things about the Medieval view of Love and Romance is that land was one of the acceptable reasons for falling in love with a woman. :o :o

It is part of what makes Holy Grail so funny. In some ways it is more accurate than most Arthurian and/or medieval films. It's probably the only film that illustrates Lancelot's habit of rushing in and killing people without knowing the full details of a situation.


I do have problems wondering how the romantic small talk went:

"On my darling, I have never seen a woman with eyes more blue or pastures more green!"

Yeah. It kinda gets you, right here. :P