Province level divisions

[Bearcat]

>I was thinking today (dangerous habit) how I could 'subdivide' a
>province into baronies & counties etc. IE. A province of level 5/3 is
>intended as a representation of the 'sum' of all law, guild etc within
>that prov. right? Now I want to specify 'where' these holdings are
>actually located within that province. In terms of game mechanics, do I
>just divide the available levels (defined by provincial level)
>throughout the province as I wish, or is there some form of logistics
>involved with this?

According to the Ruins of Empire p.7 a county is one province, a
barony is three to four provinces and duchies and principalities are about a
dozen provinces in size. This is reasonable. Consider the province of
Alklund in Rhormarch, this province is about 25 by 20 miles, which is really
small.

However, if you really entertain the idea of small plots of land
consider this: A small village of up to 500 inhabitants requires farmland of
roughly 2 to five miles in radius to sustain itself. Place a village under
the rule of the player and give him that land as well.

As for the division of holdings you can assume that a given holding
has a percentage of the province equal to the persentage of the slots it
holds (a guild(2) in a province(4) controls 50% of the economy)
geographicaly you could do this in one of two ways:

Fractally: "The proportion is the same in every settlement no matter
what"

Varying: Doesn't need to be equal in every settlement, but respects
the overall proportion in the province. ("Those dirty Avani heretics have
gained control of the northern province of ________ , Haelyn help us.")

Bearcat
lcgm@elogica.com.br
Come visit Bearcat's Birthright Homepage at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6204

[Morgramen the Magician]

Hi folks!
I was thinking today (dangerous habit) how I could 'subdivide' a
province into baronies & counties etc. IE. A province of level 5/3 is
intended as a representation of the 'sum' of all law, guild etc within
that prov. right? Now I want to specify 'where' these holdings are
actually located within that province. In terms of game mechanics, do I
just divide the available levels (defined by provincial level)
throughout the province as I wish, or is there some form of logistics
involved with this?
I ultimately plan to start a campaign where ALL my players are non
regents. They do all the typical hero stuff, and are finally granted a
small plot of land in province 'x'. As such, if this plot amounts to
1/8 of the land in the prov, what levels do I place for it? Is the
provs. sources contained elsewhere? Subdivided equally throughout the
prov? Is that rival law (0) actually in the middle of this plot of
land?

I gotta find a simpler hobby... :P

Keith

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Morgramen the Magician
>Hi folks!
>I was thinking today (dangerous habit) how I could 'subdivide' a
>province into baronies & counties etc. IE. A province of level 5/3 is
>intended as a representation of the 'sum' of all law, guild etc within
>that prov. right? Now I want to specify 'where' these holdings are
>actually located within that province. In terms of game mechanics, do I
>just divide the available levels (defined by provincial level)
>throughout the province as I wish, or is there some form of logistics
>involved with this?
>I ultimately plan to start a campaign where ALL my players are non
>regents. They do all the typical hero stuff, and are finally granted a
>small plot of land in province 'x'. As such, if this plot amounts to
>1/8 of the land in the prov, what levels do I place for it? Is the
>provs. sources contained elsewhere? Subdivided equally throughout the
>prov? Is that rival law (0) actually in the middle of this plot of
>land?
>
Interesting thought. I would say, you don't divide it into baronies and
counties, those are whole-province or multi-province size holdings. Better
units would be shires, manors, or perhaps townships, with each being run by
a sherrif, knight/banneret, or mayor/council, respectively. I would say
each such fief is equal to one portion of the usable land in each province.
For instance, a province of hight mountains has a maximum level of 3, so
there are three viable areas in the province, each of which could be a
township. A plains province has a maximum of 10, the highest of any
province, so there could be up to 10 townships in a plains province, and I
would go so far as to say that each township, in any province, has an area
of about 1/10 the province's. This means that the high mountain province is
only about 30% usable land, which seems about right.
Now, a law holding would then indicate that you had control of one or
more of these townships, or at least the governing bodies of them. So, if
you (as DM) granted a fief to a newly nobled PC, they would be ruling about
1/10 of the province, and be executing one of the law holdings, in the name
of the ruler who actually owned that holding. A holding (0) would probably
indicate that you held a minority of the government of _one_ of these
townships, such as the advisor to a major, or the second-largest group of
thugs, or whatever. I would say that the available source holdings are
located in the townships that have not yet been settled or developed.
Daniel McSorley
June 19-The Truth is Revealed
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~mcsorley/

[craig@finance.econ.usyd.]

At 08:08 PM 27/5/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi folks!
>I was thinking today (dangerous habit) how I could 'subdivide' a
>province into baronies & counties etc. IE. A province of level 5/3 is
>intended as a representation of the 'sum' of all law, guild etc within
>that prov. right? Now I want to specify 'where' these holdings are
>actually located within that province. In terms of game mechanics, do I
>just divide the available levels (defined by provincial level)
>throughout the province as I wish, or is there some form of logistics
>involved with this?
>I ultimately plan to start a campaign where ALL my players are non
>regents. They do all the typical hero stuff, and are finally granted a
>small plot of land in province 'x'. As such, if this plot amounts to
>1/8 of the land in the prov, what levels do I place for it? Is the
>provs. sources contained elsewhere? Subdivided equally throughout the
>prov? Is that rival law (0) actually in the middle of this plot of
>land?
>
This would probably depend upon how you envisaged the make-up of the
province. Take for example a level 3 province, the maps in the Players
Guides indicate that in general a level 3 province has 1-2 largish towns
plus several smaller villages. The holdings are going to be located where
the people are so if 1/8 of this province does not incorporate any of these
population centers then it would have no holdings (its no good having a
temple with nobody to peach to, a guild with nobody to work for or a
constabulary with nobody to keep in line). I would say that in this
situation each town would represent 1 holding level and the villages as a
collective would represent the rest. The ideal thing of course would be if
you determined the population in each subdivision of the province and then
determined holding levels based upon what proportion of the total province
population that each of these subdivisions represented. Of course this
could lead to silly fractions if the overall provincce level is to low, ie
how do you subdivide a level 1?
As to you choice of titles, according to the source information the rulers
of places as large as Roesone, Diemed, and Ghoere are "Barons/Baroness's"
so what then is the ruler of part of one province? In other words is
anybody else bothered by the upside down noble title system?
Hope this helps.

Craig

[DavTyr@aol.co]

In my oppinion the provinces in Birthright ARE the small plots of land,
each only represents about 2000 Total square miles(roughly 40mi by 50 mi).
This would represent a small barony. In addition depending on the level of
the province, you can have up to 4 or as little as 1 person with holdings in
the various areas (law, temple, guild or source). So I wouldn't break down a
province any further because if you take 1 point of law and break it up among
two or three characters then none of them would have enough power to make
things happen, at least not game mechanics wise. Instead make them vassels of
their lord, grant them rulership over a province, but have their lord require
them to pay so much every season to the King & also make them have to supply a
minimum # of troops which they pay ALL costs & maintenance for to the crown.
Realistic & gives them power, but not too much.