Chart of Vassalage
Completed Sheets
Incomplete/Unreviewed SheetsMinor game I am thinking of running due to growing interest in medieval power struggles. Essentially, everyone is going to be playing as one of the rulers of a noble house with their avatar representing their house's coat of arms. The initial state of the game will have me utilizing the King as an NPC of 'my' house, but I have no doubt that will rapidly change, whether due to laws that are made or the fact that I am going to set it as an old king (10% chance to die in round one and increasing by 10% each turn.) with no heir, things will be going dicy soon.
As for what more concerns you, below is the signup sheet, followed by an explanation of what each thing means in regards to mechanics.
[u]Family[/u]
Head of House:
Spouse:
Designated Heir:
Other Children:
[u]Demographics[/u]
Founder:
Fealty:
Land:
Castle:
Culture:
FamilyThese are the initial members of your household. The minimum required is
Head of House, but if you are a major house it would be recommended that
Spouse and
Designated Heir would be filled out as well. Besides the name, you need to include gender, age, and whether they are alive or dead, in the case of the spouse. A short description as to appearance of each member would be useful to include as well as a couple defining personality traits. I would prefer it if the last name that represents your house has some basis in your actual username, but it not required. Do note that this is going to be what could be considered a low fantasy setting, with humans being the only sentient race.
DemographicsEach of these aspects needs to be filled out. The
Founder position indicates who the original founder of your house is and a short description on how your house had been founded. As a reference for events, let's say it has been roughly three-hundred forty years since the founding of the nation. Whether yours is older or newer is a matter of choice for yourself.
The
Fealty slot only needs to be filled out for Minor Houses, and is to indicate allegiance to one of the Great Houses at the start of the game. The first five sheets that are posted, which do not specify they are for a minor house, are the ones that represent the Great Houses and do not fill this slot out. Instead, they replace this with the
color category that is filled out to represent the land under their control on the map I'm going to be making, based upon the next category. So later people can join, the map will have NPC houses that will only have the vaguest of descriptions until one is taken over. Due to the length of time it might take to fill out the sheets,
reservations for these five slots are acceptable. At the current time, the Great Houses is/are
House Laade (Ghazkull),
House Jenridge (Playergamer),
House Tyrollineidia (High Tyrol),
House Day (Insanegame27), and
House Abstract (AbstractTraitorHero).
Land is a description of the geography of the lands your house rules over. For the Great Houses, this is a description of a biome and major rivers, as well as positioning in regards to the other Great Houses and neighboring nations. As it will be difficult to name which of the bordering houses are which, use a indicator such as <#> as a placeholder. There are likely to be conflicts as to positioning as everyone is posting at once, but go ahead with putting it in anyway and the errors will be worked out afterwards. For Minor Houses, this is a much more focused description of a single area and a general idea of where exactly within the Great House's borders you are located.
Castle is where you provide the description for the castle you rule from and a bit about the surrounding town (for Minor Houses) or city (for Major Houses). Keep in mind the technological level is going to be set to a level near that of Europe near the Crusades.
Culture is mainly pertinent to Great Houses, but there can be a level of difference on the Minor House level. For a rough idea of what I have in mind for this game, think Europe just before the Crusades, though a few differences are acceptable. Description of the religion predominant in the area you control also goes on this level. There's going to be a couple things in this level I will be set against allowing, but most will be allowed. As for those wishing for a high magic culture, I'm having magic in the 'maybe magic, maybe mundane' level, so ambiguity of whether it is caused by in depth plans and illusions or actual magic should be there.
Past this, there will be details such as wealth and armies you could call upon, but that's going to be determined by myself based upon the level of house you have, land you describe, history, age of the house, and a variety of other factors. I will be making things balanced, so do not worry too much about being uncompetitive. To allow for political intrigue, actions will likely be mostly sent in via pm, but overt gestures you want everyone to know about are to be posted in-thread. For a sense of time of how long things take, each turn will be a season in length. I'm going to make an attempt to post every Tuesday, but I recognize that this may not always work and the date will probably be changed from time to time to account for problems.