How to playAs the ruler of a great house of Calan, you primarily assume the role of your family’s patriarch/matriarch. You control a fief and have vassals along your border regions. Each turn/season, you issue a set of orders, two to be exact.
Primary Order - You chief focus for the season, and that which you will pour more resources into and may take longer to achieve, with a larger payoff, and greater risk. A military campaign, arranged marriage, murder plot, or spy infiltration may be such things you devote to a primary order.
Secondary Order - A smaller scale action that can be completed within a single season, with fewer resources and smaller rewards. A feast with vassals, a pilgrimage across your land, a trade caravan to a neighbouring city are such things you may seek to complete with a secondary order.
Simply pm your orders, including your character’s name and important details. An overview of order outcomes will be posted in the ic thread.
Your FiefName:
Description: Add a detailed description of your fief, a quickly drawn up map would be a great help for me when I add it to the map as well. Include a primary and secondary terrain. This will determine your land’s resources. A dense forest with outlying hills would be rich in lumber and game, for example, as well as moderate minerals. Grasslands and river valleys, on the other hand, and expect to be exceedingly rich in crops.
Resources: Orders cost resources. Be mindful of what’s in your coffers and larders before issuing an order. Resources are measured in four grades.
Abundant means you have a healthy store, and you are able to gather far more than what you are using.
A surplus means you are gathering more than you can use while maintaining a fair stockpile.
Balanced means you are able to meet your fiefs demand.
Shortage means you are unable to meet the demands of your fief for said resource. While this isn’t ideal, you can assume that guilds and vassals can make up the shortfall, but additional resources will need to be secured for orders, which will cost you gold.
Depleted is a total lack of a resource, your people are scrambling to gain it, yet they are unable to produce in any meaningful quantity, forcing even greater strain on your coffers in acquiring the resource for orders.
Crowns - The currency of the Calan, gold coins named after the royal crown imprinted on its face. The crown alone is endowed with the authority to mint money, though this hasn’t stopped some upstart lords in the past.
Ore - Gold, silver, copper, and iron, are the most prominent of the ores unearthed in Calan. They need to be worked by smithies, however, in order to fashion tools, weapons, and coins.
Lumber - Used primarily in construction, light fortification, and weapons.
Stone - Cut from quarries to be used in construction and heavy fortifications. More challenging to work with than lumber, but well worth the efforts.
Food - Stores of crops and games and usually a good indicator of your subjects’ stores across your fief. A hearty stockpile is important for surviving winter or fielding an army.
Your CharactersIn The Greatest House you primarily play the role of your family’s patriarch or matriarch. Calan is a feudal, patriarchal society, but there are occasions where a woman might become the ruler of a household. You may have any number of supporting characters to act as your agents in the world, but it is your leader and heir that I am most concerned with.
When creating a character, follow the template below.
{Family Crest}
{Portrait}
Name: The name and titles of your character. At the very least, your character is a duke/duchess.
Age:
Traits: Please list a positive and negative personality trait. Is your character have brutish strength? Or perhaps they are anemic? Wise and shrewd, or dull and slow? Your traits will have an impact on your characters stats, and will be taken into account when processing orders.
Bio:
Skills: These fields will be finalized by me with each of you given a score that will equate into a dice modifier.
Combat: Your character’s overall ability in combat, should they find themselves crossing swords with another.
Martial: The ability to form military strategies and lead men in battle.
Charisma: The ability to persuade others to your agenda. High charisma characters tend to have little difficulty in keeping their vassals loyal.
Stewardship: The administrative ability of your character, typically pertaining to economic factors and law.
Intrigue: Your character’s overall ability to scheme and manipulate through clandestine means.
Learning: The overall intelligence of your character, particularly in relation literacy, religion, and history.
Dice RollsOrders are determined by a mix of dice rolls, and what I deem is reasonable for the story. In instances where I will rely on chance, will work as thus…
An order is given a difficulty rating depending on different factors. This is a numerical value that a player must roll to achieve. A 20 sided die is rolled for the player, modifiers are added or subtracted to the roll, and the result determines success or failure.
For example, let’s say your character is looking to plant a spy in a vassal’s court. This wouldn’t be too great of a challenge, after all it's in lands under your indirect influence and there are likely many opportunists among the vassal’s court that would seek your favour. I’d probably set it as a challenge of 10.
Let’s also say that this character isn’t particularly skilled in intrigue and rated a 1. This means they add a +1 modifier to their roll. If they can meet the challenge rating of 10, they succeed.
For more complicated orders, not only do they have to meet the initial challenge rating to succeed, but a subsequent effort roll is done as well. The die used is determined by your skill in a particular field. Ranging from a d6 to d12, the roll determines if the player can succeed within a season, or must dedicate another turn to the challenge and effort.
Being KingIt’s good to be king. Not only does the king rule the crownlands, a fief under their direct control, on top of their dynastic holdings, but they also have a royal council to lend aid to their orders.
The king can delegate orders to their council, setting their mandate, and leaving the particulars of how it gets done to them. Though, royal councilors do often have their own agendas. The king may select a player character to sit on their council as well, giving an ally a greater hand in the rule of the kingdom.
Chancellor - The kingdom’s top diplomat, in charge with overseeing diplomatic missions at home and abroad.
Marshal - The king’s second in command of the royal army, charged with marshaling and training levies.
Spymaster - Chief advisor in clandestine operations, and commander of the kingdom’s spy rings.
Archbishop - The king’s top spiritual advisor and second in command of the church.
Steward - The administrative advisor and charged with overseeing the king’s counters, taxes, and economic initiatives.
Being a CouncillorShould the king bestow a seat on the royal council to your character, you gain greater influence in ruling the kingdom, but your fief falls from your direct control. You may still issue mandates for your regent to follow, but success and failure is largely out of your hands.
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