Theme Questions

This is an archive of responses that have been recorded by staff on the Theme Questions board. Unless indicated otherwise, these are direct quotations from the bboard.

Fealty

Q:These have obviously been called into question with recent in character events, but what are the actual obligations of a vassal noble to their liege in this setting? A lot of people seem to be working on the assumptions of absolute obedience but I have to imagine that is only one extreme of a very broad spectrum of relationships and contracts'.

There seems to be a 10 percent income tax as standard and there is obviously some kind of military obligation as well but how far does that go? Are the armed forces of a noble expected to be entirely at their liege's disposal? Or is a landed noble's obligation to provide X number of troops for a set period a year? A month? A season?

A: Taxes up to this point were automated, but Tehom recently added in a shown Tax percentage in bank payments rather than an auto deduction. That's consider a vassal's responsibility. As to military forces, it would be 'a reasonable percentage of their force that still accounts for the security of their holdings'. In practice, that's not less than twenty five percent for the full duration of any armed conflict, but the liege was wide latitude in forgiving that.

Q:I imagine things vary but is there a general standard and if things are nebulous is there a customary obligation? Additionally what are a liege lord's customary obligations if a vassal goes above and beyond these expectations? For example if a vassal is fielding more troops than their feudal contact specifies and brings them when banners are called, or remains in the field longer than is expected, does that generally mean their liege owes them a vague favour? Are they expected to start paying those soldier's wages to compensate their vassal if somebody turns up with a double sized army or fights for their liege all year?

A: Responsibility would solely be on the vassal to support it, though lieges and vassals have a wide latitude to debate what's reasonable.

Q:Also is scrutage a thing? To expand if, a vassal is unable or unwilling to send troops to their liege, is instead providing their overlord with money (to hire mercenaries or pay other nobles to up their contribution) an option, or indeed can a liege lord ask for money instead of troops? Or possibly is this kind of thing abstracted into the taxes already levied? Obviously those are options which could be personally discussed but are there in character assumptions of what is and is not acceptable?

A: Short answer, yes. These are very fluid- a vassal could make a reasonable offer to show their support, and a liege could accept it, and it is up to the two of them to determine what's reasonable. It would be extremely unusual for a liege to declare a vassal in disobedience- most lieges just are not powerful enough (unless they are a known tyrant, like Donrai was) to enforce their will uniformly and risk pissing off their other vassals. The most extreme step would be a liege, with the consent of the high lord of the kingdom and possibly the crown, to declare a vassal as outlaw (outside the law) and make them Abandoned. There's a number of Abandoned houses that fit that category, that live in such a defensible location that no one has ever bothered to try to conquer them or been successful at it.

Q: Weird array of taxes.

A: God no, let's keep it simple.

The Faith

Godsworn and Children

Q:I know that godsworn can not marry. But, is that like the IRL Catholic vow of celebacy? I know in theory we have great birthcontrol, but I was also told before that 'orphans' showed up and got Knight... support, in a manner that is not entirely unusual. Ie, its not entirely uncommon for godsworn bastards to show up. I'm not asking this about Preston's birth itself, I note: I don't know and don't ever expect to know his birthright. Him being an anonymous orphan is cool. But i'm wondering on the law of 'attachment' in the Faith.

Are relationships frowned upon? Are the godsworn SUPPOSED to be celebate? I note: "supposed" is important to the context of this question, not what is normal.

I have a theory that this is all about the Laws of Limerance and its that marriage creates a bond that conflicts the godsworn: an oath that binds them to another interest. And so my thoery is as long as there's not an *oath* made before the gods, that's what matters. Yes, godsworn shouldn't have children. (Yet it happens and is nudged under the rug) but the actual law is no marriage.

Is my theory totally wrong? Am I misinterpreting this?

A:All godsworn take an oath that they will set aside any bond that could come between their devotion to the gods and the crown. This is understood that they will avoid forming any relationship that come between them and that service, though strict celibacy is not required. However, if a godsworn member does have children, it's understood that they now have an obligation that they cannot in any way reconcile with being godsworn, and are required to leave the faith to care for the child. Individuals that want to become godsworn are only permitted to do so if they have no one dependent upon them- they cannot take the vows if they have young children, or if they have anyone they provide primary care for. It is also not uncommon for godsworn to be released from their vows if the family they set aside require them, and both the family and the godsworn member asks- but they would not be permitted to return until and unless the situation again changes. Godsworn that have children in secret, and do not give up their vows to care for them would definitely be forced out of the Faith- it would be a betrayal of their obligations. As part of the ritual when they are sworn, any potential godsworn is asked in the ceremony if they have any others that depend upon them, or any others that could come between them and the gods, and asked to take a vow to never permit that to occur.

Honor Duels

Q: "Are there hard and fast rules in Arx for the specifics of Dueling? i.e. Does the challenged get to set the circumstances of the duel such as the weapons to be used, if armor is allowed, etc. Also, who must declare their champion first?"

A: It's traditional for the challenged party to pick the terms for any kind of honor duel and the particulars of the engagement, and then that would go back to the accusing party whether they want to withdraw the challenge or accusation. Similarly, if it's accusing someone of a crime, the challenged party is the one that decides if they want to settle trial by combat, they could just insist on a trial in their fealty or by a crown representative as the judge. The defender would declare their champion first typically, but that's just traditional politeness rather than a requirement. Politeness tends to be everything, since it's a matter of saving face after all as the point behind most duels.

Further, what should be remembered here is these are duels of honor to save public face. The population of Arx would be extremely unforgiving of someone trying to appear to honor it on the surface while trying set terms or conditions that would make it impossible. In other words, trying to arrange on a date that would be impossible would make someone look extremely bad, and so would trying to insist on conditions that would be humiliating for the participants involved. "We shall fight without armor to first blood" is appropriate, saying, "We will fight naked in an insult contest declaring how much we suck with each swing" would not be, and even proposing the latter would cause opprobrium. In short, honor duels are always dignified, since they are about defending the honor of those involved- never farcical.

The Lyceum

Succession/Conclaves

Good question recently in light of recent events. Was asked that if conclaves aren't voting, then how does the Lyceum really differ thematically from other great houses.

A: Okay so the whole, 'dictate terms when people are defeated' is actually very different from other great houses, in that it has an implicit understanding that civil wars won't usually result in the utter destruction of another city-state or the annihilation of another house. And that's a very very important concept, in that most wars of rebellion are usually by necessity fought to the utter extinguishing of any line in order to prevent future conflicts. Like the Tyde rebellion, it ends with a house attainted and destroyed and it lands absorbed. That doesn't happen in the Lyceum at all. City-states just don't change hands, but the recognition of where they stand is more malleable. It's a very important distinction since otherwise people would assume that in order to take the great house position one would have to wipe out velenosa utterly, and I think it is very very very very important to avoid that, and instead I -do- think there will be crippling wars that can put someone in a position where they would be effectively defenseless and have no choice but to surrender it, while if it happened to Grayson and its army was wiped out, it would be unthinkable for Bisland to go, 'well that sucks for you, we're now the great house'. That just wouldn't happen thematically, while in the Lyceum it very clearly would.

Shav'arvani/The Abandoned

Q:What is the general Shav culture and life like? Is it equivilant to historical barbarian tribes like Gauls or Mongols? Or is it a post apocalyptic fight for daily survival? Further are there any vestiges of former cultures such as what we recently saw with the Shave of House Marin, or is that a unique case?

A:Shav/Abandoned culture is kind of a misnomer, as there's definitely no single unified one. There are thousands of different tribes of Abandoned and hundreds of different cultures, though there's some main strands.

There's Abandoned that were never, at any point, members of the Compact or parts of noble houses. These are mostly found in the Northlands, as in days before the Reckoning the Northlands were almost entirely barbarian raiders against the more developed southern lands, particularly against House Valardin. The Reckoning saw most of the tribes unite under Queen Valeria, but perhaps seventy percent of the tribes fell under demonic control during the Reckoning, and have the largest porportion of extremely barbaric and savage shav tribes. Most of the more extreme practices, like human sacrifice, ritualized cannibalism, demon worship and so on are found in Northlands shavs, though it's not even close to homogeneous. Abandoned tribes are vastly more likely to be fighting each other than raiding the Compact, and there's cases when dozen of tribes, clans and former houses ally against one another and have fairly significant wars that the Compact barely hears about.

Secondly, there's the former houses that were lost during the Reckoning. The term 'Abandoned' largely comes from them, as the vast majority of the nobles and their domains stood and fought against the demonic invasion rather than flee for the safety of Arx, attempting to defend their holdings. Most of the tribal identities come as bastardizations of their old house identities, and some stayed relatively intact a thousand years later. Keep in mind, during the re-conquest of Arvum after the Reckoning, many of the Abandoned were pushed off the same ancestral land they defended and given to other branches of the same family that did come to Arx, or other noble houses, so there's some thousand year old grudges over stolen land, or betrayal by family.

Then there's the other phases of societal collapse. The next several hundred years after the Reckoning were constant warfare and generations of trying to regain control over pats of Arvum, as essentially nothing was under significant Compact control -but- Arx, Sanctum, Farhaven, Maelstrom, Bastion and the Lycene city-states. Details about this are particularly vague, as all history was lost, but Arvum was just starting to come into parity between Abandoned and Compact control by the time of the Elven War, which was another genocidal conflict that saw humanity nearly wiped out, and virtually all holdings of man falling, save much of the same fortresses that withstood the Reckoning. And this, in turn, produced another wave of Abandoned houses that developed independent of the Compact for another 500 years. And then following that, the Crownbreaker wars a couple hundred years ago tore the Compact apart again, and saw another wave of collapse, and surge of Abandoned.

So in short, there have been at least three periods of effective collapse of civilization, and all of them have produced independent Abandoned houses, and all have their own cultures, traditions. Some are post apocalyptic fights for survival, some hundreds of miles away in isolation past hard land that hasn't been visited in centuries and completely forgotten, are probably pretty well developed. With millions of square miles, a lack of reliable maps, and dangerous exploration, there's a lot out there that the Compact is at best only dimly aware of.