The Definition of a “independent land owning Noble” is:

[Northnovas]

Following up Braden's request of a poll format for players in KotF.

Each questions starts with An Avatar with..... too many characters to add in the poll.

[Ituralde]

I would like to vote a) AND c).

Both are right to me. You are independent as long as you don't belong to a ratified Duchy. The number of vassals, if any, is irrelevant.

[Braden]

I agree with that but as long as one of those definitions gets decided we have clarity.

[econ21]

I completely agree with Ituralde - I voted (c) but would like to have voted for (a) and (c). Whether you have vassals or not does not affect your independence. You are independent if you are not part of a House. A close analogy in my mind is with "independents" in the US - they are independent if they are not affiliated to either political party; in our case, for party, read House. Saying the Duc of Lorraine is independent is like saying Obama is.

[Braden]

Well, it just occured to me that ANY un-ratified provinces are already AUTOMATICALLY within the Kings ownership and cannot be "owned" by ANY Avatar.

Once they are Ratified then ownership HAS to be clarified by the King doesn't it? For example he either states it remains in the Kings Demesne OR is transferred to a stated Avatar (either to a Duc to then distribute to another or to keep as his own).

Therefore, actually in our game, is there any chance of an Indepenent Noble with land existing?

The way I see is the answer is....No. If that's right then the term as put in there by Zim must mean option b) rather than our initial understanding of it. Unless, of course, this is an error in the rules.

To me, I agree that "independant" has to indicate that there is no other link in the Feudal Chain and the King obtains lands from Duc's who die WITHOUT vassals or Barons to inherit (i.e. without a Feudal Chain behind them).

[econ21]

I'd have to re-read them, but I think the rules leave open the possibility that the King give land to nobles who are not in Houses. I remember worrying about this at the time when petitioning the King to give land to the Order. Privately, I mulled over three possibilities: Antwerp remaining in the King's demesne but being managed by the Order; Antwerp going to a Duke who gave it to the Order; or the Order just getting it outright. However, I did not mention these complications to Tristan in character as it seemed presumptious for a lowly knight already chancing his arm and as it happened he just gave it to the Order outright. This seemed the simplest arrangement and also the one which gave the Order the most freedom so I remained happily silent. I gather there was some private grumbling by the Dukes, but no one challenged the legality publicly.

It's quite hard to create a House within the rules, so allowing a little wriggle room for independents is a good thing IMO. Ideally, I like a rather messy feudal structure, with feudal chains that have patchwork lands all over the place and different levels of size and status etc (some great Duchies, other smaller entities), as that seems to portray the medieval reality better. However, the House rules did create some needed initial structure to the politics. Now that the Houses have pretty established identities, I think we can afford to tolerate deviations such as collective ownership by the Order or independent individual landowning knights.

[Ituralde]

I agree with econ21. I see it that land can be given to any noble no matter if he is in a House or not. It doesn't matter who the giver is either. So theoretically any land-owning avatar can just gift his land to another avatar. All that might do is cause some havoc IC.

[Braden]

Ah-ha! Lets relate this practically.

So, assuming Henri grants Charles Staufen, and assuming from there that Charles does not apply for his own Duchy (or one is not ratified) then would Charles be an Independent Noble in the true sense of the phrase?

If Charles died without having a Ratified Duchy to his name, no matter how many provinces he controlled or what vassals he had…those lands would then revert to the King.

If I’ve got that right then that sounds interesting and potentially very fun to RP with.

[Ituralde]

Well and also if he didn't have a valid will. But then again he can't have a will that gives away his title of Duke, since he is no Duke. So I don't know if we kept the part where you can always pass on one province, but you're right apart from that potential one province an unratified Duchy would be pretty screwed.

Oh and once again he would be as independent as he was before. Land ownership once again doesn't change the status of his independency.

[Braden]

Indeed. I “guess” he could put a will gifting the lands he has to another Avatar either creating another land owner (for want of a better phrase) or even to an existing Duc from a Ratified Duchy.

In theory, he could still give land even without title?

Even after giving the land away, as long as he wasn’t in fealty to a Feudal Chain, then he’s still “Independent”.

[econ21]

Um, I am playing catch up here and starting to understand where Braden was coming from by splitting (a) from (c) and his proposed codex amendment. Looking at the clause in the rules on wills and inheritance, there is a potential conflict between the first and second sentences:

(d) - Wills & Inheritance: Upon the death of a noble his land goes to the highest member of his feudal chain. If he is independent the land goes to the King. All land in the King's Demesne is passed to the new King. Duke's can pass on their rank to a House member of their choosing, by naming a successor in a valid will. Wills must be PMed to Zim before the Avatar’s death to be considered valid. If a Duke dies without naming a successor, the King picks the successor from among the highest ranked Nobles in their House.

Suppose an land owner not in a House but with vassals dies without a will. By the first sentence, his land goes to the highest ranking vassal. By the second, it goes to the King. I think this is just a failing in the rules - the clause was not written with a mind to feudal chains that are not inside a House (although the oaths to fealty rules do allow such chains). There's also no explicit mention in the rules of wills being used to transfer land - unless you are a Duke, what happens to your lands when you die is decided by either the first or second sentence, not by any will you write.

I don't think there is much point trying to discern what was intended or meant by the rules on this contradiction, as I'd don't think we had thought things through to this extent when drafting them. We are essentially charting new territory and de facto making new rules, even if we don't pass a formal amendment.

This poll could potentially decide OOC which sentence we follow. If you vote (a), as Braden argued, then the landowner is not classified as an independent in the sense of the second sentence and so his vassals inherit his lands. If you vote (c) [or (a) and (c)], as Ituralde argued, then the landowner is classified as an independent and so the King gets his lands. However, I am not sure everybody is up to speed on this. I certainly was not and voted (c) without understanding this nuance (I thought the poll was more to clarify the much more straightforward issue of whether the Duc of Lorraine could be described as an independent[1]). Plus, formally, we don't decide rules by simple polls but by codex ammendments (or by GM rulings).

My feeling on this is that it seems a good issue to decide in character, as it is very "political" and there's not a clear OOC intention or meaning discernible from the rules. It is basically about the strength of Houses and flexibility for setting up alternative long lasting feudal chains that are not Houses. So we either pass an IC codex amendment to sort this stuff out or, failing that, rely on the provisions in the rules for handling rules disputes IC (King/Seneschal decides). At the moment, everything is hypothetical so there is no rules dispute per se. So we either leave things grey, to be decided when an actual dispute arises, or we propose an IC conseil amendment to clarify matters at the next Conseil.

So to take the hypothetical case of Prince Charles dying intestate with Staufen outside of a Duchy, my opinion is that we don't know whether the King or Charles's vassal would inherit Staufen. It would be an IC rules dispute and, since the King had a vested interest, the Seneschal of the day would decide.


[1]The issue about whether the Duc of Lorraine's lands stay in the Duchy or go to the King seems quite distinct from all the above.

[Braden]

Personally, can we just agree that any Will is upheld?

Plain English = As long as the Avatars mentioned in the will are active/alive then it stands.

So anyone, Duc or Independent, land owning, Avatar can leave their land(s) and/or Titles to whom they choose?

Even Henri, as Duc of Lorraine “could” state in his will that his Duchy and lands move to Charles (for example only I hasten to add…that’ll really annoy lots of characters!) on his death, or Captain of the Order of the Fleur De Lys even!

Or, more normally, his vassal.

It might be worthwhile to consider a codex amendment (which is the way I wanted to go and why my amendment was proposed in the OOC thread) later though.

[Ituralde]

Good points econ21.
I actually also came across this but didn't have the time back then to write a lenghty argument about it. Wills really aren't covered in the Rules except for that half sentence. I believe the idea back then was that only land from an official Duchy is 'safe' from the King. Which was the basis for all of my argumentation. Although I didn't realize it fully at the time I'm glad that my support of c) is fully in line with that.

The question really is whether land can be given away in a Will. We had a stance on that in LotR, don't what our stance is here. I can see Bradens point where it's just sensible that anything you write in the Will is fulfilled. After all why should you loose a right (giving away provinces) you had while alive once you die?

On the other hand we wanted a strong King, which would be supported if land falls back to him from independent Nobles. So only land within a Duchy is hereditary, while outside a House/Duchy it will always fall back to the King. Which I think is more in line with history, where land was given with and without hereditary claim to it.

But that's really something for another discussion I think.