Game Name, Titles, Etc.

[TinCow]

We're definitely playing ERE, and I want to get this game started in a week and a half, so I'd like to figure out what the proper names for everything should be. We need to get good names/titles for the following things:

1) Name of the Game!
2) FACTION HEIR
3) FACTION LEADER
4) GOVERNING BODY
5) CHANCELLOR
6) All Feudal Titles: Knight, Baronet (just in case we return to the linear system), Baron, Viscount, Count, Marquess, Duke, Grand Duke

Please offer suggestions for all of these.

[Privateerkev]

Name of game = Emperor of the Romans

Short, to the point, keeps with our Roman theme.

[OverKnight]

Byzantine Intrigues: The Empire Strikes Back

As for titles of the nobles, some of the ERE titles are quite. . .elaborate, particularly in the late period.

FL = Basileus, Emperor or Autokrator
FH = Caesar or Kaisar, depending if we adopt Latin or Greek transliterations.
Grand Duke = Exarch?
Duke = Dux?
Baron = Praetor?
Knight = Strategos?

I'll dig around wikipedia and John Julius Norwich's history of the Empire later on to see if I can get others.

Here's a start, some titles to think about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_title

[AussieGiant]

Strap into that!!

Court titles
Αύγουστος (Avgustos, Augustus),
Καίσαρ (Kesar, Caesar),
πρίγκιψ (Prinkips, princeps, Prince),
κόμης (Komis, comes, 'Count' (certain type of officer)),
μάγιστρος (magistros, magister),
κοιαίστωρ (kyestor, quaestor),
σιλεντιάριος, (silentiarios, silentiarius, a certain type of court officer),
παλάτιον (palation, palatium, palace),
κουροπαλάτης (kuropalatis, from curator + palatium),
ακτουάριος (aktuarios, actuarius, a court physician)[1],
καγκελλάριος (kankellarios, cancellarius, chancellor),
σακελλάριος (sakellarios, saccellarius, treasurer),
τιτουλάριος (titularios, titularius, title-bearer),
οφφικιάλος (offikialos, officialis, an official).

I'd recommend:

FL = Augustus or Caesar
FH = Princeps
Chancellor = Cancellarius
Grand Duke = Exarch
Duke = Dux
Marquess = Magister
Count = Comes
Baron = Quaestor
Knight = Silentiarius

[Ramses II CP]

(Stealing shamelessly from AG's list without regard to their original meaning)

Knight - kyestor (Questor seems the closest to a Knight errant to me)
Baronet - kuropalatis (Curator, a for the lowest land owning title)
Baron - offikialos ('Office holder' for the second lowest landed rank)
Viscount - titularios (Title bearer, one of the first ranks of consequence)
Count - Komis (It evidently means Count, simple)
Marquess - magistros (They both start with an M?)
Duke - Dux (Reconsidered to rip off AG's edit)
Grand Duke - Strategos (Ditto)

Chancellor - kankellarios (It means chancellor)
Prince - Prinkips (It means Prince)
I'd prefer to call the Emperor, Emperor. Simplicity for simplicity's sake.

Some of these I chose because they seem slightly insulting (Curator and Office Holder) to me, which is appropriate for the bottom ranks. Others I chose because because it will be simple to keep their counterpart in mind, and so the ranks won't be confusing.

Anyway, debate, discuss, discard, etc.

[AussieGiant]

My other thoughts would be to use Strategos for Grand Duke.

It was the highest non-royal rank you could get...and seems suitably impressive.

Augustus or Caesar has to be the FL or nothing...they are a lock as one of the top royal positions in most reference material I have available...

Please note I'm NOT using Wikipedia as my first reference on any of this!!

Another question is the spelling...do we use the Latin based version or the converted English letters?

i.e. Kyestor or Quaestor; Avgustos or Augustus etc etc.

[Ferret]

tbh I'd prefer to keep the titles in English otherwise I'm going to get really confused as to who is what rank and probably end up using English anyway.

Game name: Rebirth of the Romans

[Zim]

No new names/titles to add, just wanted to say I rather like the idea of using Basileus for the emperor (or just using them both interchangably).

[GeneralHankerchief]

Title: The Other Romans

That's all I've got right now, but Strategos should definitely make an appearance somewhere.

[Ituralde]

Just as a warning, my only source is wikipedia.

1) I don't have anything yet, the first things that come to mind are "Those Greek Bastards" or "Theodora's folks"

2) Caesar

3) Basileus (Could also be Emperor, I guess will see Basileus as much as we saw Kaiser in KotR)

4) Senate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Senate)

5) Megas Logothetes (Magistros could be given to Ex-Chancellor to signal his influence bonus, it being a honorofic title without any executive powers)

6)
Knight----------- Strategos (lowest rank that has command of armies)
Baronet----------- Praetor
Baron-----------
Viscount-----------
Count-----------
Marquess-----------
Duke-----------
Grand Duke----------- Exarch

Haven't found anything suitable for the other titles. Also Strategos is a little disputable. After all, all following titles will also have command of an army, thus making them a Strategos.

[deguerra]

Please can we use "The Empire Strikes Back" (TESB)?

It futhfills my Roman, Byzantine AND Star Wars wants

I will leave the titles to others for now. May have a look later, but I feel I annoyed people enough back when it was a language I knew.

[FactionHeir]

Byzantium: Fading Glory

[flyd]

My first observation is that "The Empire Strikes Back" is an excellent choice for the game name. I suspect that reconquering the old empire's lands might become a bit of a theme (heh heh, theme. Get it?) in the game, or at least a justification for the megalomaniacs among us. Also, it's four words long, and the name of a Star Wars film. It has everything going for it.

Fitting the Roman bureaucracy together with our feudal-like rule system will require a bit of work. The first thing we might need to do is disassociate the rank levels from their current names. Dux is a fine title, but need not correspond to the current rank level 7, labeled "Duke". Its position ought to depend on how many appropriate titles we find of higher and lower ranks. What we're really looking for are not Greek equivalents to the current English names, but 8 levels that make sense for the ERE.

Then not all ranks fit in a nice line. Exarch, for example, seems to be the leader of an Exarchate. It doesn't seem like you'd just get promoted to it if the land you hold is somewhere in the interior of the Empire. I almost hate to suggest this, but we could have more than one title per level. Say the highest level ranks is Strategos, but if someone goes off and conquers Italy, and reaches the highest rank, he might style himself as an Exarch just to be special. Confusion would be reduced if he were fully equivalent in every way to a Strategos.

Then there is the whole nomenclature of vassals and swearing of oaths, which seems inappropriate. Nothing fancy here, but the lower-ranked "officers" should probably be called "subordinates" or something. Oaths might be ok, but "feudal chains" are right out.

There also seems to be a distinction between military titles and civil ones. It would be odd if a "magister" commanded his own army. It just sounds like his job is to sit in an office. However, the civil ranks would be fine for the lower ranks that can't command an army, but the upper ranks should probably be drawn from a military rank hierarchy. A civil title is fine for the chancellor.

Those are my general thoughts on naming. Specific suggestions might come later.

[AussieGiant]

Nice thought process FD.

Can you put all that in a suggested set of titles based on your concept?

Wikipedia seem fairly accurate by the way. I've cross check some of the pages with my history books and it's panning out quite well...it helps that the history books are also full of varying opinions.

I definately like Iturlade's idea for a special title for ex-Chancellors, that's a nice touch and should be added.

[_Tristan_]

I think simplicity should prevail over verisimilitude...

I simply won't stand trying to write Megas Logosthetes everytime I want to adress the Chancellor...

Something like Magister would do the trick for me...

FlyDude' s point should also help in creating a fitting hierarchy...

As for the name of the game, I must shamefully grant that I like the Star Wars theme but I would prefer if we remain in the trend set so far in the previous games...

WotS
KotR

perhaps something like RoER (Rise of Eastern Rome)

[Ignoramus]

How about using the nickname most historians give to Justinian, "Last of the Romans"? I know that there' nothing essentially "Roman" about the empire now, but they all thought of and called themselves Romans, and to be honest they had a legitimate right to do so.

As for the titles, I agree with AG's list.

[pevergreen]

Vote: Last of the Romans.


im still here

[TinCow]

I'm also a fan of Last of the Romans, which also happens to have the same acronym (LotR) as Lord of the Rings, for you fanboys.

For titles, I suggest we adopt a dual system of real Byzantine titles as well as the current generic English (language, not nobility) titles. That way people who want to roleplay properly can refer to them by their 'real' titles and people who are confused by that or who care less about roleplaying can just use the generic titles and be clearly understood.

Position - Real Title (Generic Title)

Faction Leader - Basileus (Emperor)
Faction Heir - Caesar (Prince)
Governing Body - Senate
Chancellor - Megas Logothetes (Megas)
Knight - ? (Sir)
Baronet - ? (Baronet)
Baron - ? (Baron)
Viscount - ? (Viscount)
Count - Patrikios (Count)
Marquess - Anthypatos (Marquess)
Duke - Magistros (Duke)
Grand Duke - Exarch (Grand Duke)

I'm missing titles for the mid and low ranks. The ones for the high ranks are (according to wikipedia) titles given to very few people in the Byzantine Court, so I think they fit the bill. If we're looking for some historical accuracy, we should pick titles that generally correspond to their rarity, not the level of power held by that person. Strategos should not be a formal title, it should be something we can call people who lead armies. In KOTR we often referred to people as 'General' and in the next game (LotR?) we can just use Strategos as this substitute.

[_Tristan_]

Nice acronym, this LoTR...

Who gets to be Sauron ? I volunteer for Gandalf...

Shouldn't Basileus rather be Basileos to reflect the greek origin (like the other titles...) ?

[Privateerkev]

Could you imagine a PBM using one of the Middle Earth mods?

[_Tristan_]

On the topic of OOC references, everytime I see Strategos written I can't help but think about Grendizer, the Japanese anime series where the main villain was called just that (in the French version) ... Grand Strateguerre... Who I think was Emperor Umon in the English version...

[Ramses II CP]

Just call me Tuor then. I suppose I should've picked a hobbit (I do have rather hairy toes and a penchant for barefootedness) but if you're going to be in an absurd mythic fantasy world why not pick an an immortal?

[Privateerkev]

We could just pick Rohan or Gondor as a faction. It would certainly be fun.

[OverKnight]

Here's my stab at titles with the Greek or Latin followed by english transalation if needed. If KotR was any indication we'll interchange these freely.

I've tried to plug in titles that are relatively short. I make no claims for historical accuracy, but I've tried to keep them in order.

Knight = Senator (All the players are Senators, this is the base rank, you don't get a shiny title until you get some land.)
Baronet = Topoteretes - Lieutenant (A title used to designate an assistant commander throughout the military system)
Baron = Comes - Commander (A military officer responsible for 200 men)
Viscount = Domestikos - Captain (Depending on the system we adopt, this is the first rank that has its own army. Domestikoi started as Imperial Guards but later became army commanders in the Theme system.)
Count = Hypatos - Consul (Here we start moving into court titles, but still with a military overtone.)
Marquess or Margrave = Antypatos - Proconsul
Duke = Dux (The military and civil leader of a Theme)
Grand Duke = Megas Dux, if the House is located far from the capital, Exarch could be substituted.
Emperor = Basileus
Chancellor = Megas Logothetes probably shortened to just Logothetes.

I've left out Strategos because as others have stated, the title can be used to describe any avatar that is an Army Commander, just as we used General.

I placed military titles at the lower end, because that's where we needed to plug in titles.

Latinized versus Hellenized transliterations will most likely continue to be a source of contention, IE Basileus vs Basilios or Alexius vs Alexios. It will probably depend on each person's source material. I don't see that we have to pick one over the other as they're easily interchangeable.

As for a title, I stick by "The Empire Strikes Back", but if we want to keep more in theme with the previous titles (the <noun> of the <noun>), I suggest "The Return of the Empire".

[Privateerkev]

What about: Neurosis of our Basileus? Or NooB for short?

[flyd]

I endorse OK's list + Ituralde's ex-Chancellor suggestion + The Empire Strikes Back (LotR is ok too)

[deguerra]

Agree fully with FLYdude above me.

Except Basileos rather than Basileus,as was pointed out, but now we're just nitpicking.

If anyone ever starts a Lord of the Rings PBM, I had better be informed!

[Privateerkev]

If anyone ever starts a Lord of the Rings PBM, I had better be informed!

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=160903

[deguerra]

ooo. those are very shiny. Perhaps when the mod gets out, you and I can set one up. I may have to call dibbs on Rohan :D Although I did always love the elves...

[Ituralde]

Somehow Overknights suggestions appeal the most to me, so I also agree with FLYdude on his first two points.

Concerning the name of the game. I'm pretty open about it, in the end you'll get used to it not matter what we choose. I mean King of the Romans?!
Come on!