Agemegos

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

Right. He had two claims via Edward (in addition to the promise' date=' he was also Edward's first cousin once removed). He also - at least apparently - got Harold to swear to accept his claim when he was held prisoner by William. it was the claimed breaking of this oath that helped William secure papal blessing (and a papal banner) for his attempt to reclaim his rightful throne.[/quote']

 

Another important factor in securing Papal support was lying about which archbishop had consecrated Harold. William said it was Stigand (the archbishop of Canterbury, but a pluralist and simoniac who had recieved his pallium from an antipope). Harold said iy was Aldred (archbishop of York).

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

William the Conqueror? He attacked with himself AND all his feudal subordinates' date=' and some allies.[/quote']

 

And with a blessing from the Pope (obtained by perjury), and by offering estates to anyone who would join in and bring troops. A lot of lords from Brittany and Flanders 'came over with the Conqueror'.

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

Nonsense.

 

William the Bastard was the legitimate heir to the throne of England. He had been nominated as such by Edward the Confessor.

Even supposing that were true (our only evidence for it is that William said so), Edward the Confessor had no right to appoint his successor, or to bequeath his kingship like a piece of property. The right of choosing teh king belonged to the Witanargemot, and they had elected Harold of Wessex.

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right?

This question first crystallized in my mind while reading the Song of Ice and Fire series' date=' but it has stuck with me ever since: in feudal societies, much is made of the "rightful" king. If the old king dies, it's vitally important to figure out who the "rightful" heir is. If someone usurps the throne, things just aren't right until the rightful line is restored, and so on.[/quote']

 

It is worth noting that all the well-known kingdoms were actually elective until the High Middle Ages. If there was a rightful king immediately on the death of any king, it was probably because his dad had staged a rigged election some years before, and got him elected co-king.

 

That didn't happen in Ireland, of course. The Irish kings appointed a 'tanist' from among a class of qualified candidates. When the king died, the tanist automatically became king.

 

Look at England, for instance. The kingship was elective until 1066. When a king died, the witanargemot elected another--sometimes they acknowledged an invader, other times they chose a foreigner. In 1066 Willim of Normandy invaded the country and murdered King Harold. The witanargemot elected Edgar the Atheling, but William just took over. When William died, his heir was his son Robert, but his second son William took over. When William was assassinated his older brother Robert was his heir, but his younger brother Henry took over. When Henry I died his heiress was his daughter Matilda, but his nephew Stephen of Blois took over. When King Stephen died his heiress was his cousin Matilda, but her son Henry took over. When Henry II died his heir was his grandson Arthur, but his son Richard took over. When Richard I died his nephew Arthur was his heir, but his brother John took over. In 1216 King John died and was succeeded by his son Henry III, and that was the first time that the kingdom of England was inherited. After then it was established that the kingship was hereditary, but whenever a king died without an eldest son to replace him you got a succession struggle. It wasn't until 1689 that England actually had a law of succession.

 

The French when through the rigmarole of electing the 'dauphin' as his father's co-king until 1179 or thereabouts. The kingdoms of Poland and Germany were elective as long as they lasted. The kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy vanished early anyway.

 

In short, mediaeval 'feudal' societies never really made much of the 'rightful king'. That is a projection backwards of standards pertaining in a later period, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, when Royal absolutism had eclipsed feudalism.

Re: Certain gods in real-world pantheons

For the Greek gods' date=' the main candidates for "god of evil" are probably:[/quote']

 

Hecate. Eris.

Re: Military Size

Or you could model the culture after the Spartans.... where every male was required to be a soldier

Not every male in the community. Only every male in the ruling class (the homoioi (Peers)). A large majority of the population of Laconia was of the helot class, forbidden arms. And a majority of what was left were perioiki, allowed arms but not required to be soldiers.

I gather that the homoioi never numbered more than about 8,000 men under arms (aged 20 to 60), and by the end of the 3rd century BC they were down to 600. I don't know what the total population of Spartan territory (Laconia plus Messenia), but I would guess at least 300,000.

Re: Military Size

I've read arguments that suggest that no society can maintain over 10% of their population under arms for any extended period (and I think "extended period" means "longer than the soldiers can go eating food they carried in themselves"). That's the full population' date=' including all ages, both sexes, and all social stations.[/quote']

 

That sounds about right. I remember having an argument once in which I claimed that no society with pre-steam train logistics could sustain an army as large as 1% of the population in the long term. It turns out that I was wrong. The Southern Song Empire in China managed to field a standing army of 1% of population in garrisons along the Yangtse Kiang, and it took about a generation for the economic burden to ruin the state. Troops spread out in the productive heartland (and used in a peacekeeping/law enforcement role) would be somewhat easier to support.

 

On the other hand, pre-modern societies whose armies didn't need a lot of industrial backup could sometimes produce enormous militias for emergency service. Ancient Athens and mediaeval England for example had organised militias that were in theory fully armed and that in theory mustered every week (England) or month (Athens) and that in theory consisted of every able-bodied man.

Re: Military Size

In the modern era' date=' after the invention of the reserve system in the 1800's, you're probably right. Before that, though, societies lacked the cohesion to trust that large a segment of the population with weapons skills.[/quote']

 

Mediaeval England managed. Under the fyrd system it was in theory compulsory for every adult male to have weapons and to train with them every week.

Re: Book suggestions?

You might like to try Poul Anderson's Flandry series, about a naval officer who becomes an intelligence agent in a decadent interstellar empire.

Ensign Flandry, Flandry of Terra, Agent of the Terran Empire, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, etc.

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

The other title that I would bring up is Marchlord or Marquis - depending on the actual March they may be the single most powerful noble in the realm other than the king.

They may even be more powerful than the king. Where the kingdom is elective they might be the king from time to time.

Lots of marches developed into kingdoms in time.

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

King The monarch. This is an inherited position' date=' though as you might guess that can and does get "complicated" if there are several people 'close enough' to think they can claim the throne when the time comes. As often as not it's not who's the direct heir that ends up being important, but who can marshal the most political, theological, or military support for their claim.[/quote']

 

Good point. Far too few people realise that kingdoms were originally not hereditary but elective. The Kingdom of Poland remained elective until its final partition, other kingdoms succumbed to other tricks.

 

In France, for instance, the kingdom moved back and forth between the Carolingian and the Robertian families until about 987, when the kings hit on the trick of summoning the nobles while they were still firmly in power, and getting them to elect a son or brother as co-king. In this way they ensured that the throne was never vacant, and that a free election never took place, The rigmarole of election of the king of France continued until 1179, by which time the hereditary nature of the kingship was firmly established.

 

The kingdom of England was nominally elective until 1066, besides which Henry II tried the trick in 1170 of getting the nobles to elect his son co-king. It took a long time before the idea of a law of succession got really established. From the conquest to 1216 no king of England was succeeded on the throne by his heir at law. And even after then, there was no clear rule as to who succeeded if the king's eldest son were not available. When Edward VI died the succession was determined by his father's will (even though he left a different, contradicting will himself). When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, with no children, no brothers and sisters, no nieces or nephews, and no will, it was basically 'first in, best dressed' as among her cousins. The law of succession was not established until the Bill of Rights in 1689.

 

By my count, there have been fifty-nine kings or ruling queens of England since Alfred the Great. Only thirty-two of those succeeded to the throne as the lawful heir of their predecessor, and some of those weren't sons.

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

According to the sources I have been looking through' date=' the concept of Baron originated out of Britain and were given land directly from the King himself.[/quote']

 

Yes. And as such all earls were barons. When dukedoms were introduced to England (in the fourteenth century) dukes were barons, too.

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

The concept of wandering adventure[r]s is a gigantic anomaly (in general strangers are always the first suspected of any crime)

Good point. In English villages, for example, it was a crime (punishable by a fine of up to sixpence) to 'harbour' a stranger (ie. let a person who was not a member of the village eat a meal or sleep a night in one's house). So if you wanted to travel, you had to either sleep rough, stay overnight only in towns, or seek shelter from lords and religious institutions. And buy provisions only in towns.

Re: Monofilament Blade

For some people, its all about ideas. Imagination.

 

Whether or not something is possible in the realm of physics if often secondary for most GM's and completely irrelevant to some.

Indeed. And it is exactly such people who think "We've got an immensely strong, incredibly fine, light thread? Cool! That'd make great armour."

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

Eosin's pointing out the military might often posessed by Marquis makes me suspect that it may be related to the word "marshall".

Nice idea, but a don't think it is going to pan out. The 'mar' in marshal has to do with horses. The 'mar' in 'marquis' has to do with borderlands.

The marshal was originally the 'mareschal', the "horse-servant" of the king's household. As the leading members of the king's household developed into great officers of state (Steward, Chamberlain, Chancellor), the marshal became a senior officer in the army (sometimes subordinate to the Constable (the 'count of the stables')).

A marquis, on the other hand, was originally a 'mark-graf': the count (graf) of a borderland (march).

Speaking of marshals instantly suggests sheriffs, and thereby hangs an interesting tale.

The Carolingian kings of the Holy Roman Empire ruled a kingdom that was assembled by subjecting neighbouring peoples. The leaders of those peoples became dukes (from Latin 'dux', meaning 'leader') and herzogs (from an old German compound meaning 'leader of the army'). (Later, when national groups such as the Normans migrated into the kingdoms and retained autonomy, their leaders also became dukes.) The kings then appointed trusty companions to exercise Royal authority in compact territories (which were usually within the national lands of the dukes. In French these appointed administrators were called 'comte' (from the Latin for 'companion'). In Germany they were called 'graf'. The graf of a town was a burg-graf, the graf of a 'land' was a land-graf, and the graf of a march was a mark-graf.

Now the kingdom of the English was also assembled by annexing and conquering lands that had originally been independent kingdoms. And the subject leaders of these peoples were called 'earls': the earl of northumbria, the earl of Mercia etc. The king divided his kingdom up into scirs (shires), and to run each shire he appointed a scir-geref (sheriff). So originally an English earl was equivalent to a French duke or German herzog, and an English sheriff was originally equivalent to a French comte or a German graf.

Then came independent deveolopment. Royal authority in German and France degenerated almost to nothing. The castellans of royal castles and the counts and grafs managed to make their offices and authority hereditary. Some became practically independent (eg. the Count of Toulouse). But in England the royal government held things together much better, and 'sheriff' remained an appointive office in the royal government, not hereditary.

Then the duke of Normandy (which was in France, but practically independent of the king of France) conquered England and introduced [a tidied-up, text-book version of] the feudal system. He created lesser vassals (called lords) and great vassals, whom he called earls. But the 'earls' were really equivalent to French counts, much weaker and more numerous than the French dukes to whom the earlier English earls had actually been equivalent.

The office of sheriff, though distinctly non-feudal in its character, was too useful to be got rid of. And of course it no longer resembled the French office of comte to which it had originally been equivalent. Like the earldoms, it was demoted one grade. As long as official records were kept in French, the sheriffs were described as "vicomte"--'deputy count'.

Re: Feudalism Made Simple

Earl is the Latin word for Count.

Actually, 'earl' is a distinctively English word. The French is 'comte', Spanish 'conde', Italian 'conti', all derived from Latin 'comes'.

There is some debate over who has more power, a Count or a Baron. However Barons are appointed directly by the King himself and for that, I see them as holding more power.

You face almost unanimous disagreement. 'Baron' is sometimes used to include all the great feudal landowners (such as dukes, earls, counts, and lords without specific titles). Less generally it refers to the barons who have no higher title. Now, the sieur de Coucy was one of the six greatest vassals of the King of France, and made some fuss of being a 'mere' baron. And in the late 14th century Enguerrand Vi de Coucy bought the county of Soissons for cash, But that doesn't make 'baron' a higher title than 'count'.

Marquees is a title with little use in history and was usually given to those on the borderland of a King's land. They are below a Count in power.

Where 'marquess' or its equivalent (French "marquis", German "margrave") was anything other than an arbitrary title, a marquess was actually the count of a borderland (mark, march), with special powers. The title wasn't used in England until the mediaeval period was over (but the earl of Chester, the earl of Shrewsbury, the Bishop of Durham etc. had equivalent powers). On the other hand, 'markgraf' was a well-used title in Germany, by no means historically unimportant. Austria started out ruled by a markgraf (promoted to duke in 1194, archduke in 1493, emperor in 1806). The margkgrafs of Meissen promoted themselves dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg (1423) and ended up as electors and eventually kings of Saxony. And the markgrafs of Brandenburg conquered themselves a kingdom in Prussia (1688) and ended up ruling Germany as emperors (1871). The markgrafs of Baden weren't insignificant either (they ended up as grand dukes after 1738).

There were some marquises in the South of France (eg, the marquis of Gothia, the marquis of Septimania) who ended up as vassals of the Comte de Toulouse. But teh County of Toulouse was an anomaly, and every order of precedence agrees in placing a marquis higher than a count.

Dukes can be used are essentually relatives of the King given some measure of power and land control.

Only in the dying days of feudalism (fourteenth century and later in England, never in Germany). In the early and high mediaeval periods dukes were the rulers of people whose lands had been incorporated into an Empire, but who retained a large measure of autonomy. The dukes in France were the dukes of Aquitaine, Normandy, and Brittany. They were unrelated to the royal family, and practically independent. The dukes in Germany (herzogs, actually) were te descendants of the kings of the German tribes, the Bavarians, Swabians, Franks, Saxons etc..

A GM is of course always free to set things up differently in his or her fantasy setting. It is just that the terminology of your setting is going to steer people astray when they encounter more traditional uses of the terms.

Re: Monofilament Blade

Actually' date=' it was a Shadowrun reference; from the Street Samurais Catalog.[/quote']

 

Ah! So now a lack of sense of humour is the same thing as not having read the same Shadowrun supplements you have read.

Re: Monofilament Blade

You wanna talk about "busting chops"?

 

How about we forget the physics or whether or not the weapon will actually work, and help a fellow gamer design an ultra-cool weapon.....

Okay. How about Desolid, usable against others, area effect radius, no range, personal immunity, one charge per day continuing for 24 hours? That is pretty cool if you can get a nice little NND does body affects desolid. Of course it isn't much like a monofilament knife, but neither are a lot of things.

Me, I'd rather help a fellow GM construct a game that doesn't run into problems with the consistency and capability of technology.

Re: Missing SW-Brand Mono-Climates

I don't think it's that hard

It isn't hard. But it will excite a tremble from anyone who trembles at the thought of Subtopia, the suburb world.

Re: Missing SW-Brand Mono-Climates

Is this basically an oceanic world with scattered islands?

Yes, and additionally the islands are all made of porous limestone.

Not sure what the big difference here is. I don't know much about Marshes. I'm from California.

Swamps have trees, marshes have grasses and rushes and that sort of thing. Roughly speaking a swamp is a flooded forest, and a marsh is a flooded grassland. (Not really, but that is what it looks like.)

I can see an entire world terraformed just for agriculture. It's a checkerboard pattern of artificial lakes and croplands.

That's the shot!

Not sure what the appeal would be, but it makes sense.

Huge herds of bison. Wind-powered wagons. Horse nomads.

What is that exactly?

A biome in which the trees are scattered with stretches of herbs and grass in between them, rather than forming a continuous canopy and starving teh undergrowth of light (as in forest).

You just googled "climate types" didn't you...

Nope. Cast my mind back to 9th Grade Geography. The reason that I am concentrating on Australian landforms is that filming will be cheap now that the Star Wars films are being made in Australia.

Badlands world?

Sort of, except with trees and heath growing on it.

What? Did you get a degree in this stuff?

No, economics.

Actually makes me shudder.

Try living in Canberra sometime. Or most parts of Sydney.

Re: Missing SW-Brand Mono-Climates

I'll let you have the last word.

Thanks.

Re: Monofilament Blade

Wow. Not much of a sense of humor on some folks I guess.

Not when so many people's quips sound exactly like other folk's put-downs, no. For a person who is unfamiliar with extruded nylon 'monofilament' your post would not have seemed so side-splittingly funny. You know, and I know, that suture material, fishing line, and spaghetti shoelaces are monofilaments. But some people in this conversation have only come across the word in SF contexts, as a portmanteau of 'monomolecular filament'. There has to be a way of pointing out the existence of the non-SF sense of the word without being obscure and crushing.

Re: Monofilament Blade

Well' date=' for starters I think you mean monomolocular. My shoe string is monofilament, and it's not going to cut anything any time soon.[/quote']

 

Yeah, well. At the time I was reading the Niven with the variable sword in it (was it Ringworld? Did Speaker-to-Animals use one in an attempt to hijack the ship?) my father was stitching up people's facial lacertions with monofilament suturing material. Which is to say nylon or silk that had been extruded at the thickness required, and was not spun or braided out of separate filaments. One filament = monofilament, all fair and above board.

 

But words sometimes have who meanings, and I don't think that we are in desperate danger of confusing nylon monofilament with monomolecular filament, even if they both go by the same name. So let's not bust anyone's chops. Mkay?

Re: Monofilament Blade

the monomolecular edge cuts through things very easily' date=' and the [i']rest[/i] of the "blade" continues the separation of pieces-parts until they permanently separate.

 

 

or am i not seeing something ?

You seem to be assuming that the monomolecular edge will be unreasonably strong. But it won't. It will only take a few billionths of a pound force to break a monomolecule.

Edges that smash through armour have to be robust. When it comes right down to it you have to deform the armour, and deforming the armour requires force.

Furthermore, if strong long-chain molecules are available for edging knives, there will be an even better use for them in weaving cloth armour or reinforcing composite plates in armour. We use kevlar for armour, not for knife edges. I bet it would be better than kelvar for stopping bullets. So everyone with armour will be wearing it. So a monomolecular knife edge that cut through kevlar like a knife through cheese, even if it worked, which it wouldn't, would be a useless curiosity.

Re: It comes back to haunt you

In one of his essays' date=' Larry Niven mentioned that this problem was one of the reasons he stopped writing about the Known Worlds. It becamed [sic'] clogged with miracle gadgets.

 

 

The gadgets narrowed the scope of possible stories to the point that writing the stories was not fun any more.

So it is series that suffer from this problem. Series of written stories as much as series of TV episodes, series of movies, or series of adventures.