Lordship and Vassals

Ruling over land is a tried and true way to gain and store wealth.

LORD–Defined: A man chosen by a King or Earl to be governor over 1 Hundred (5 mile x 5mile area with 100 Churl militia-farm families and about 1000 total population). Or, over a 1000-person ward or district of a city or large town (an Urban Hundred).

LORD–Privileges:

• An estate of 5-10 Hides (25gp profit per hide per month) or city property netting an equivalent in rent.
• Keep 250gp per month of royal tax from the Hundred.
• Treated as a Lord in the law courts.
• Attend the Witan to advise the King and to elect new kings.
• The right to build fortifications of stone to defend the Hundred

LORD–Duties:

• Hold a Hundred-Moot 4 times a year to settle disputes among the churls.
• Lead the militia of the Hundred in defense of the Hundred and its neighbours.
• Send 20 militia and 1 knight to serve the king or earl for 60 days if army is called.
• Responsible for the 550gp of royal tax that must be sent up to the earl and king.
• Administer the king's laws in his Hundred.
• Pay 30gp to his local parish church each month, and help with any major repairs to the church.

REEVE–duties and rights

• A reeve is a deputy or manager appointed by a lord over an area of less than 500 people.
• A reeve can be dismissed at any time by the lord who appointed him.
• A reeve appointed over a Hundred that has not yet been incorporated as a lordship has the power to enforce the law and settle disputes in a smaller reeve moot.
• The reeve collects a tax equal to 1gp per person per month, keeps 10%, and passes the rest up to the lord/earl/king.
• The reeve can call on 10% of the population as a militia for defensive and law enforcement purposes only. He personally may owe military service to his lord, but the unincorporated land does not.

VASSAL–Defined: every man (churls, geburs and burgers all) in the kingdom must have a lord to whom he swears faithfulness, someone who is not a lord, is called a vassal. A vassal is not an employee, slave or property of his lord, but is expected to follow his orders during military actions and during court procedures and to pay his royal taxes to him. Lords and Vassals are expected to be loyal to one another, not to lie or cheat one another. A vassal who will not swear faithfulness to the Lord of his hundred is expected to sell or abandon his land at the end of the year and find another.

OATH OF FAITHFULNESS: each year, typically on January 1, the men of Nessex all swear an Oath of Faithfulness to a Lord, which is reckoned to last 1 year. This binds them to a lord as their war-time commander and their judge in matters of law. Breaking the oath by lies, defiance or crime on either side is considered an offence under law and is tried in the Earl's court, unless an Earl is involved, in which case it is tried by the King.

The least complicated way to become a lord is for the player to be appointed to a vacant lordship by an Earl or the King. There's no format for this, it must arise from player action through the course of political role-play. A more likely scenario is for the player to create and settle his own lordship.

To create a lordship, one must stake out a 5 by 5 mile area in unclaimed land. Then one must settle at least 500 people on it. If the territory is adjacent or easily accessible to the Kingdom, then applying to the King will like result in his accepting the founder as a new Lord and assigning him to the authority of the nearest Earl.

One might want to establish a completely independent lordship outside of the kingdom, which has its advantages (setting one's own tax rate and keeping all the cash, for example), but it has a significant downside in that it will be much harder to recruit loyal vassals to farm the land.

• The Spring Arrivals at Kingston: Each Spring a crowd of immigrants arrive in Kingston looking for a place to settle. These immigrants can be recruited in Kingston in the spring months (March-May). They come in two sorts, Prepared and Unprepared. The Prepared Vassals have tools, maybe some animals, and are ready to get settled and build a farm. Unprepared have nothing but the shirts on their backs. A player desiring to gain vassals can make one recruitment effort per year of these immigrants. He spends three weeks in Kingston mixing with the arrivals making contacts and arrangements. At the end of the time he gains 5 Prepared settlers per point of Charisma Score and 20 Unprepared settlers willing to swear an oath of fealty to him and to come to his settlement for each CHA point, if he passes a Charisma check, if he fails the check he only gets half of each type.

• Recruiting Vassals in Europe: A PC can recruit as many Unprepared people as he wishes by sailing to Europe, spending a month recruiting, and paying for their food, passage and other expenses to cross the sea.

• Poaching Vassals: A PC can recruit vassals of another lord to come over to his land. Usually, these vassals count as Unprepared, being the landless laborer families of a Hundred looking to gain a Hide of their own. Attempting to do recruit vassals this way can only be done in a town (not Kingston) but can be attempted at any time of the year. The player must spend 2 weeks chatting up folks in a town and then rolling a CHA check, if successful, he gains (1+CHA bonus)x5 unprepared settlers. On a check of 20 or better the recruits will be Prepared. However, there is a chance that this will be noticed and cause a reaction by the local lord. If the player passes both a CHA and an INT check during the drive, then his actions are not noticed by the local lord. If either fails, the lord will find out and will likely confront the poacher. Poached vassals can be recruited at any time, but they will not come to the settlement until January, when their oath of faithfulness can be changed.

• Step 1: Stake out a 5 mile x 5 mile area, clear it of hostile monsters and outlaws.
• Step 2: Start building a hall or manor house, a parish church. and a watch/bell tower. These buildings are legal requirements to receive recognition.
• Step 3: Acquire at least 500 settlers. Immigrant recruits arrive in June, Poached recruits arrive in January.
• Step 4: Apply to the Earl or King for recognition.

• Prepared Vassals: These folk arrive with tools, some food, and a plan to get themselves up and running. They still need some assistance with basic food until they've gotten themselves established. For each person, rulers will have to spend 10GP for basic food and aid to get them through the first three months where they are building shelter and getting their farms established. They will not be able to start paying land tax until April of the year after their arrival.

• Unprepared Vassals: These folk need a lot of help. They have arrived as refugees or paupers with little property or expertise. Each unprepared immigrant requires 30GP in food expenses to get them from June to April, while each poached unprepared immigrant requires 10 GP to get them from January to April.
• Additionally, a Hide settled by unprepared vassals will also need basic capital assistance. For each 5 unprepared immigrants it requires an investment of 75GP for a plow, two oxen, assorted tools, round shield, and spear. Unprepared vassals can't begin paying taxes until June of the year after their arrival.

Prepared Vassals: these appear as standard class D Nessex militia with a round shield, short spear, saex and hunting bow.

Unprepared Vassals: these appear as class E raw recruits, with the round shield and short spear you bought for them.

Improving the militia is very often a key goal of many new lords.

• Equipment Upgrade: The lord can provide troops with better equipment any time he desires, using his own money and either giving or loaning it out. Troops must be Class C or better to wear heavy armor and to use Martial weapons. Militia can ride horses, but they can not serve as cavalry in battle, needing to dismount to fight.
• Improve Class E to Class D: This is a question of training only. A player or henchman of the Warrior class can train 5 men at a time per XP level. The training takes 8 weeks, minus 1 week per point of CHA bonus of the trainer. At the end of the training time, those men become Class D.
• Improve Class D to Class C: This upgrade combines training and experience. The formula for training is the same as for moving class E to D, but to be eligible, the men in question must take part in one combat operation.
• Improve Class C to Class B: As soldiers see more action, they become tougher. After each combat operation of note (DM discretion), class C troops roll 1d6, with a “1” indicating they pass to class B. However, no more than 20% of any militia can be Class B.
• Improve Class B to Class A: As soldiers have become trusted allies they reach this final class. After each combat operation of note (DM discretion), class B troops roll 1d6, with a “1” indication they pass to class A. However, no more than 10% of any militia can be Class A.

Housecarls are the professional soldiers hired by a Lord, Earl or King who live and attend upon their liege and are ready for danger at all times. A housecarl and his liege swear a second oath, beyond that of Faithfulness, called an oath of Homage, whereby the housecarl agrees to become the liege's man. A housecarl is expected to guard the life of his liege even at the price of his own, and the liege and housecarl are expected to protect, rescue and ransom each other at need. The oath is held binding until both parties agree to dissolve it.

Generally, the liege spends 1gp per HD per housecarl and housecarl's horse (if any) per day for upkeep and maintenance (this is included in the daily living expenses). Any knights in a liege's service count as housecarls for all purposes. There is a bit of status rivalry between housecarls trained as infantry and those trained and equipped as knights. The knights think that they are of higher status, since European knights do in fact have a much higher status, but infantry housecarls dispute this, saying that the infantry housecarl is “true English” in tradition (the law does not, in fact, distinguish between the two, except that a Lord must provide 1 knight's service in the kings army 60 days per year).

The player character's henchmen are treated exactly as housecarls: they swear and oath of faithfulness and an oath of homage, and the living expenses for each are the same.

If a character becomes a Lord and wished to build a band of housecarls, be can recruit a number equal to his CHA. These arrive in a group, and begin with stats equal to Class D Nessex militia. To advance to Class C is the same process as training class D to Class C militia above, but they become Class C Housecarls instead of militia.

If you want to have knights in your service it is more difficult. You can recruit 1 Class E raw recruit per level and buy a warhorse for each you wish to train. It will take 2 years of training, by a knight who spends at least 1 week in every 4 supervising the training, to train them into Class D squires. Improving them further follows the same rules as militia.

Of course, you can recruit henchmen through the normal means and make them into housecarls as well (or knights, if they are knights or templars in class archetype).

Earls and the King can have as many Housecarls as they can afford, and aren't limited by their CHA, the power of the State substitutes for Charisma.