The Brotherhood of Blackheads

If there's any trope in fantasy gaming I have little love for, it's the adventurers' guild. You know what I mean - an organization of itinerant mercenaries, operating in parties that take on tasks together - and wouldn't you know it, those parties just so happen to have the same breakdown of backgrounds, skillsets, and specializations as a typical group of PCs - either soliciting jobs from those incapable of helping themselves or seeking their own fame and fortune, who are willing to slay monsters, explore dungeons, and loot treasure hoards, and more often than not all in the name of wanderlust and/or profits.

To me, there is no greater flashing neon sign saying "this is a game." The typical adventurers' guild assumes that the PCs (or more accurately, the stereotypes of PCs) are not outliers; the sorts of people they are and the kind of work they do are so commonplace as to form its own immediately recognizable socioeconomic class. This, in turn, suggests that the rules of whatever game system you're playing are not abstractions of something more nebulous and harder to define, but a direct model of how this world actually functions.

Now, for some people, that's fine. There have been settings built around exploring RPG tropes and mechanics as the observable reality of the world, and some of them are quite enjoyable in their own right. However, I find it a barrier to becoming immersed in the stories we're telling at the table, and in the setting as a living, breathing world, if it seems that story and that world exist only to prop up the rules, rather than the other way around. The adventurers' guild stands out as a particularly egregious example because it's something so commonplace in games, yet something with nearly no historical or literary precedent that isn't directly traceable back to TRPGs...

With at least one notable exception.

We don't know as much about the Riga branch,
but their hall looks amazing.

The Brotherhood of Blackheads was a guild and fraternal organization that existed in the Baltic region during the Middle Ages, and whose traditions continued for many years. To understand the Blackheads, we first need to understand the context of the time. This was around the era in which trade in the Baltic Sea was largely controlled by the Hanseatic League (which is probably worthy of a post in and of itself), and thus associations of merchants and traders in this area grew very wealthy and powerful. But in Tallinn (now the capital of Estonia), the Great Guild - the most powerful of the merchant associations - was open only to married merchants who resided in or had established business in the city. Enter the Blackheads.

The Brotherhood of Blackheads (so called because their coat of arms depicted the head of their patron, the African Saint Maurice) was initially composed of the sorts of people who couldn't join the Great Guild - foreigners, unmarried merchants, and the like. The Brotherhood gave these merchants an opportunity to associate with another, and to attend the meetings of the Great Guild to keep up to speed on what the local market was like. It also gave them a chance to throw parties after work and on holidays, which they did a lot of, meeting in their halls each night for what no doubt involved a lot of drinking and merriment.

It wasn't all fun and games, though. The Blackheads had to abide by rules. Junior members of the guild had to serve established members. Those feasts were mandatory, and one could be fined for not attending them. There were also fines for insulting or striking another member of the guild - especially in public. Records speak of a fine of five pounds of wax (by medieval standards this is a lot) for grabbing another Blackhead by the hair and throwing beer in his face, which tells me this had to have happened at some point if there was a rule for it - the "Please Do Not Feed Hallucinogens to the Alligators" of the medieval world. In addition to their obligations to each other, the Blackheads also had responsibilities to the cities they resided in; at times, the guilds were tasked with tending to the altars at the local churches. In both Tallinn and Riga, the Blackheads were also responsible for buying the town Christmas tree.

But more importantly, the Blackheads were obligated to defend their cities against invasion. As the story goes, the guild was first formed when a group of foreign merchants banded together to aid in resisting the siege of Tallinn in 1343, and they were rewarded for their service with official recognition by the city. As such, military service was an important part of the Brotherhood, and at least the Tallinn branch supplied their city with catapults, cannon, and a cavalry detachment that patrolled the city walls.

Seeing it yet? We have a group of largely foreign contractors, not quite citizens, who are granted a guild in a city and serve its people, including in battle; whose members have their own business and pursue their own financial betterment but who hold their own traditions and retire to their halls to drink together. If you're looking for a historical adventurers' guild, this one ticks many of the boxes. Maybe it isn't a one-to-one match, but it's the closest I can think of.

A while back, I ran a Dragon Heist campaign with the setting transplanted to the city of Hynden in the Levic Marches - my setting's analogue for Hanseatic Livonia. In researching the history of this region, I discovered the Blackheads, and I knew I had to include them. In the Lunar Lands, they exist as the Company of Boars' Heads, a guild of those merchants and travelers who were unable to join the League of Three Crowns due to being foreign, unmarried, or both, who operate their own organization in return for serving in the defense of Hynden and performing other, more ceremonial duties (like helping decorate for Midwinter festivities). And, yes, their members might even take on some odd jobs once in a while.

Regardless of how you feel about adventurers' guilds, though, the Brotherhood of Blackheads is undoubtably a fascinating piece of history that reminds us of how colorful the past can be. It's ripe with inspiration for DMs, and something like it could fit into many a fantasy city. I'd love to see more settings take note.

More Gods of the Lunar Lands

Following on my previous post, here are some more of the important deities in my setting. Refer to that post for general details.

Olmo is the god of the sea, and all that dwells within it. In keeping with the tempermental nature of seas and storms, he is the most tempestuous of the gods, and the quickest to anger, as well as being more likely than many to seek violent retribution for perceived wrongs. Many temples offer to Olmo in the hopes of keeping him appeased in order to ensure safe journeys by sea. His children are the merfolk, who he tends to show favor to over the earthbound.

• Olmo's symbol is that of a crashing wave, and his associated colors are blue and green.
• The center of Olmo's cult is a fabled city beneath the waves somewhere in the Great South Sea, which has never been glimpsed by human eyes. However, the Water-Witches of the City-State of Ziggara are said to commune with Olmo's children and impart their teachings to mortal man.
• Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
• Domains: Tempest, Nature
• Oaths: Open Sea, Ancients
• Sacrifices: Gold, libations

Seidra is the goddess of magic and prophecy. It is she who guards the secrets of magic, sharing them only to her most trusted of mortal agents. Her orders tend to be quite esoteric and secretive and are hesitant to welcome outsiders, but for those who can secure entrance to their vaults, they possess some of the greatest archives of scrolls and spellbooks in the known world. Seidra's chosen are often granted the knowledge of the future, and many of these oracles have been sought out for guidance, though their advice is often imparted in riddles and vague warnings that one may misunderstand until it is too late.

• Seidra's symbol is a pentacle, and her associated colors are green, white, and gold.
• The center of Seidra's cult is Kveshenholm in Kvesland, and is tended to by an all-female order of mystics. It is led by Matriarch Dagny III.
• Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
• Domains: Arcana, Knowledge, Twilight, or use a Diviner to represent a cleric of Seidra.
• Oaths: Ancients, Watchers
• Sacrifices: Incense, candles, goats

Mimir is the god of knowledge - if Seidra represents knowledge over the arcane and what cannot be understood, Mimir presides over the rational world that can be understood, including history and the physical sciences. His temples often contain great libraries, and many philosophers have been trained in their halls. Those who have heard his commands describe him as being incredibly precise in his matter of speaking and using loquatious verbiage with many references to recorded facts.

• Mimir's symbol is an equilateral triangle with an eye in the center, and his associated colors are blue and purple.
• The center of Mimir's cult is Maltherios in Golnir. It is led by Patriarch Ourias XIV.
• Alignment: Lawful Neutral
• Domains: Knowledge, Order
• Oaths: Crown, Devotion
• Sacrifices: Gold, candles, incense

Weyland is the god of craftsmen and artisans, and all trades that produce objects. Valuing hard work, dedication, and artistry, he is revered as the greatest of all smiths, and there are many magical artifacts attributed to him or his saints. He is one of the most popular deities among the dwarven holds, and many craftsman guilds pay homage to him either officially or in their titles or coats of arms; in some guilds, an item cannot be considered a masterpiece until it has been inspected by a priest of Weyland to decide it lives up to the god's standards.

• Weyland's symbol is a hammer upon an anvil. His associated colors are grey, black, and bronze.
• The center of Weyland's cult is Mezurdim, the largest of the dwarven cities, located in Kvesland. It is led by Patriarch Ral VI, a dwarf who claims to be old enough to have seen emperors rise and fall.
• Alignment: Lawful Neutral
• Domains: Forge, Order
• Oaths: Crown
• Sacrifices: Coals and embers, which Weyland is said to use for his forge. Those that were used when forging a masterwork are preferred.

Nehalennia is the goddess of trade and commerce - Weyland oversees the production of goods, but Nehalennia governs how they are bought and sold, protecting merchants, dealers, and moneylenders either at sea or on the road from both thieves and dishonest traders. She is the patron of many trading guilds, including the Merchant Company of Karkossen, which includes the Patriarch on its council to bless their endeavors.

• Nehalennia's symbol is a basket of loaves, and her associated colors are blue and white.
• The center of Nehalennia's cult is the city-state of Karkossen. It is led by Patriarch Roeland I.
• Alignment: True Neutral
• Domains: Forge, Peace, Order
• Oaths: Devotion, Open Sea
• Sacrifices: Gold, silver, bread

Eostre is the goddess of fertility and the harvest. She makes plants grow and animals reproduce, and heralds the coming of spring and the rebirth that follows; the spring equinox is celebrated as Eostrefest with many processions, fairs, and ceremonies to mark the start of the growing season. Her monasteries often serve as working farms, where the faithful toil over the land to show their devotion to the bounties she gives them in return.

• Eostre's symbol is a cornucopia filled with the fruits of harvest. Her associated colors are white and green, along with pastel blue and pink.
• The center of Eostre's cult is the city of Meyhen in Vardessy. It is led by Patriarch Irnerius V.
• Alignment: Neutral Good
• Domains: Life, Nature, Peace
• Oaths: Redemption, Devotion
• Sacrifices: The first fruits of a harvest

Lady Fate is the goddess of fate and destiny. According to legend, she was once a mortal woman who, when she was supposed to die of illness at a young age, was visited by Morthanos, but the god of death was so charmed by her beauty that he refused to collect her soul. Eventually, he married her, granting her eternal life as the weaver of all things that shall happen. Her clerics interpret her warnings and advise on what must be done, but she is reckoned to be spiteful and tempestuous, and can wreak misfortune on those she scorns - often for reasons known only to her. Yes, we blame her for bad rolls.

• Fate's symbol is a loom, strung with threads in her sacred colors of red, green, and gold.
• The center of Fate's cult is Kobuz in Kvesland. It is led by Patriarch Daumantus II. However, there are many covens of witches, sometimes with their members sharing a single eye or tooth between them, who claim to know Fate's whims directly and can forsee the future.
• Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
• Domains: Knowledge, Order, Arcana, Grave
• Oaths: Watchers, Vengeance
• Sacrifices: Wheat, cattle, sheep

And lastly, one god unlike the others but worthy of mention all the same...

Reynard, the trickster god, is seen as a patron of jesters, bards, gamblers, and thieves. He is appealed to for luck, and represents chance where Fate represents what is predestined. Often, he is depicted with the head, legs, or tail of a fox, or as a fox wearing a jester's cap, but he is said to take many guises in the mortal world, working mischief against mortals and other gods for the sake of his own amusement.

• Reynard has no established cult, no teachings, and no formal clergy (where's the fun in that?), though he has been prayed to by gamblers and the desperate. However, gambling dens are often euphemistically referred to as the temples of Reynard, and in many communities, the term "Patriarch (or Matriarch) of the Cult of Reynard" is used for a person who conducts business between a town and the Caravan People - or more surreptitiously, with thieves' guilds and criminal elements.

More Amusing Historicisms

I promised I would follow up on the last post I did exploring interesting historical anecdotes that can be used for gaming, in order to both provide fuel for scenarios and help build a world that feels different than our own. Here's that follow-up.

As always, these topics have more depth than I can cover in a single post, and anyone looking for more information is encouraged to do so - I only provide a rundown for the sake of context, and ways these subjects can be explored in games.

Literacy

It's commonly understood that the majority of people in medieval Europe could not read and write. Unless you were from a wealthy family or a monk working in a scriptorium (these things are not mutually exclusive), there was little reason to bother learning - that takes time and effort, and you can grow crops just fine without being literate. I rarely see this explored in games; most DMs just assume that all PCs and NPCs are literate (at least when it comes up). And while there's something to be said for this - after all, it streamlines things, and cuts out what could be a tedious process of needing to get someone to relay any written information to a character - there was a great amount of infrastructure that sprung up to deal with this issue, and that offers some intriguing opportunities for games.

Some of the images we so closely associate with the Middle Ages arose out of necessity in order to communicate information to an illiterate populace. The colorful, descriptive names of taverns grew from the need for each establishment to have a distinctive, memorable sign so that travelers could tell them apart ("meet me at the Bull and Lion," for instance, told someone to look for the building bearing a sign with a bull and a lion on it). The elaborate stained glass windows of cathedrals depicted images from the Bible or the lives of saints so that people who couldn't read could understand the stories. These are compelling images that have survived to this day, to the point where many of us are unaware of their origins.

Other things, however, haven't survived as long - and this lends them well to livening up game worlds. Consider the town crier. In order to communicate news to illiterate townfolk, many towns would designate an official to walk through the streets ringing a bell or beating a drum, calling out important announcements, such as upcoming events or the proclaimations of nobles, or reminding people of laws. When the adoption of the printing press made mass production of written works possible, people often got news from broadsheets that were printed and pasted on the walls of buildings, but when literacy was rare, they would have people tasked with standing by these broadsheets and reading them to people who stopped by. Having a town crier in your game could be a great way to inform your players of plot points and adventure hooks, as well as providing exposition on local laws or customs of the city.

Furthermore, the fact that most people couldn't read books made plays a popular form of entertainment. These often took place at festivals or other public events, and were performed by traveling troupes or by local guilds. Religious stories or the commedia del'arte were both popular, and sometimes overlapped (The Second Shepherd's Play, while ostensibly about the shepherds present at the birth of Jesus, is largely a secular comedy until the angel shows up at the end). Having a play take place while the PCs are in town could be a fun bit of local color, and perhaps the party could even get involved in filling in for one or more of the actors.

In low-magic settings, illiteracy also provides a convenient answer to why magic isn't more widespread and influential in society. Even if magic is powerful, it traditionally requires long and careful study in order to harness that power, and much of that information is written down in books and scrolls. If we assume most people are illiterate, that restricts its availability to people who have the resources and time to pursue its study, like the wealthy or the clergy - which maps quite nicely to arcane and divine casters. For most people, learning magic simply wouldn't be worth it. This helps keep magic feeling rare and special without needing to change much about the magic system itself.

Lastly, if one wishes, it could even be possible for PCs themselves to be illiterate. Obviously, this would have a significant impact in what that character could and couldn't do, and this would have to be taken into account, but it could lend itself to some new, and interesting, challenges. It adds another step to any quest involving secret messages or arcane manuscripts - now, the party will have to find someone capable of reading any texts they find, and preferrably that should be someone they can trust!

Adventure Seeds

• Looking to spread discord, an enemy force feeds false information to a town crier so that the public will be misinformed - perhaps ahead of an attack, or to sew dissent. Can the PCs figure out the plan in time?
• A wealthy but illiterate patron has come into possession of a manuscript, and requests the PCs to decode it. When they find it contains arcane secrets or directions to hidden treasure that the patron would covet, will they do the job, or will they keep those secrets to themselves?

Oaths

In many historical societies, swearing an oath - whether it was one of alliegance to another party, a dedication to perform a certain deed, or to represent oneself truthfully when questioned - was taken very seriously. This still survives to some degree in the concept of purjury, but the way we view oaths today hardly approaches the gravity and importance with which our ancestors viewed them.

Oaths were often taken with a particular ritual involved, which could be as simple as making a specific hand gesture or as complex as making proclaimations during a feast or ceremony. In any case, it was viewed that these weren't simply promises, but vows to be appealed to the gods themselves - they would remember what was said, and they would enforce that such orders be carried out. To break an oath, then, would be considered to disobey the will of the divine. Oathbreakers were often punished severely, as their actions were seen as endangering the entire community. And even in cases where the law wasn't necessarily involved, it was believed that great misfortune would befall anyone who failed the gods this way.

To a modern eye, it might seem ridiculous that such matters were, ultimately, dependent on the honor system - but the belief in the power and sanctity of oaths made it possible to enforce complex matters in an era where the infrastructure needed to directly impose the will of a government over wider territories simply didn't exist. The entire concept of feudalism was dependent on oaths - vassals swore fealty to their lords to provide for them, and in turn, those lords were bound by their obligation to protect those subject to them. An easy way to add historical character to a setting, and to make it feel otherworldly and exotic to modern eyes, would be to work oath-taking into the practices of everyday life. When people start making oaths and depending on them with their lives, even when there's no real legal authority to enforce them, the world certainly seems less familiar.

Fantasy settings offer some especially interesting means to handle oaths, which we can see when we look at the folklore surrounding these proclamations. Throughout the world, there are many legends that speak of oathbreakers being punished with curses for failing to abide by their agreements to the gods, or of oaths being supernaturally enforced in other means. For instance, the Norse god Baldur was only able to be killed by mistletoe because it was the only object that didn't swear an oath to never harm him, and one
Greek folk song speaks of a man rising from the dead in order to fulfill his obligations to his mother. Oaths, evidently, are powerful things that transcend even the laws of nature.

In a universe where magic and gods exist, it may make more sense for oaths to hold the power they do, and it provides an easy way to introduce conflict into your stories. There are many monsters that can be justified as being spawned to punish oathbreakers, or even as the transformed oathbreakers themselves, and it's easy to work an oath broken by some ancient ancestor into the backstory of a cursed village or a misfortunate family. Perhaps even the PCs would need to swear oaths, and attract ill omens should those oaths be broken...

Adventure Seeds

• Long ago, a noble's ancestors swore an oath that they would never bear arms in the neighboring fief. The family has upheld the oath for generations, but now the fief is under attack, and they're powerless to provide aid. Can the PCs help?
• Before a difficult voyage, the PCs must swear an oath to the gods that until they return, they will not eat the flesh of their sacred animals - which, as it so happens, are the primary food source in the region they'll be traveling. They'll have to manage their resources carefully if they don't want to attract the wrath of the gods.

Slavery

I suspect this section is going to be a controversial one. To a modern reader, the very idea of slavery carries strong negative connotations, and that isn't surprising when the system is associated with some of the most notorious human rights abuses in history. This philosophy tends to get carried into the works modern-day authors produce. But for better or worse, almost every major historical civilization owned slaves, and they were a key part of society. One of my favorite bits of historical trivia is that the ancient Greeks had all the knowledge and technologies they needed to mass produce the steam engine - the reason they didn't was because they already had slaves to perform such tasks, so it didn't seem necessary. That should give you an idea of the role of slaves in the ancient world. And in a setting grounded in history, it makes sense for slaves to be present.

Part of the stigma around slavery in games comes from the fact that when most people today think of slavery, they think of chattel slavery, as exemplified the colonial-era Atlantic slave trade - an especially brutal and dehumanizing system that was controversial even at the time. However, this is far from the only form slavery took. One prominent example is ancient Rome. Although Roman slaves did not have the rights of citizens and were subject to the whims of their masters, they were allowed to hold and use their own property (in Greece, slaves could even run their own businesses), could become citizens if they were freed by their masters (whether that be due to personal choice or the slave buying their own freedom), and in later periods were even allowed to bring up charges against their masters in court. There was no association with race; although many slaves were prisoners of war, others were enslaved as a sentence for a crime, and citizens could sell themselves or their family members into slavery to pay off debts. Often there was little to visually distinguish slaves from citizens - which was in part by design, as the Romans feared that if slaves could recognize other slaves it would be easier for them to organize a revolt.

In medieval times, slavery was generally practiced in the form of serfdom, in which the workers who inhabited a plot of land were seen as part of the property; if the land came under new hands, the serfs would too. There was immense variation in this practice alone over times and places, but largely, serfs owned their own property and worked their own fields, but were not allowed to leave and would be obligated to provide service for their master as well, in addition to paying tithes. This was a part of life that everyone expected, and played a part in the functioning of the feudal system. In fact, by some records, medieval serfs had more time off of work than modern laborers, as many lords knew that overworking or mistreating their serfs would make them less willing to provide the services they depended upon.

All of these, of course, are still unethical by modern standards, but there's no reason they have to be by the standards of your game world. Having slavery in a setting, and having it be accepted as normal and not worthy of outrage, would certainly make the setting feel less like modern times. Of course, this is something you shouldn't commit to if you don't know your table. Many players are used to slavery being exclusively the domain of villains, and they may be unwilling to trust NPCs who own slaves even if they're only mentioned as a bit of background color. More importantly, some players may find the presence of slavery without it being treated as unethical in-universe to be offensive, and since games are supposed to be fun, it's never worth compromising your players' enjoyment for the sake of worldbuilding. But in a group that knows to expect slavery as a part of the setting, it offers plenty of areas to explore. If the players are so willing, slaves of the PCs could become recurring characters and could earn their freedom over the course of the campaign; one PC could even be the slave of another. And for a more treasure-focused campaign, an escaped slave in search of gold to pay for their freedom would make for a compelling PC backstory.

Adventure Seeds

• With apologies to the Anglo-Saxons: A runaway slave has stolen treasure from a dragon's hoard in order to buy their freedom - and now the dragon is attacking!
• After a feudal lord has gained control of a new fief, its serfs are unhappy with the new management, and are planning to rise up. Will the PCs aid them, or will they quell the rebellion?

With that, I've presented a number of historical phenomena that can be used to help your game worlds feel distinct from the modern day. I'm interested in hearing what other DMs have done with these ideas or others. What do you do to challenge the expectations of players used to more modern norms and ideals?

Historical Versimilitude for Fun and Profit

Some time ago, I wrote a post explaining the phenomenon of Flintstonism - the idea of ostensibly setting a story in historical era (or something resembling a historical era), but with the conceptions of modern times. As I stated there, there's nothing wrong with that - it can make topics more relatable and more relevant for modern-day readers, or in this case, players. However, if you would like your ancient or medieval fantasy game worlds to feel more authentically historical - or just add some color to your setting - here's a few simple examples of things you can play with. For each, I've included a couple of adventure seeds to show how you can exploit these differences for interesting gaming sessions (and introduce them to players in the process), but of course, the possibilities are limitless.

A note before we begin: these are obviously complex subjects, and there was immense variation between different eras and regions. This isn't meant to be an educational piece, more of just some examples of historical details and practices that can create fun opportunities in an RPG and allow for worldbuilding. Those more interested in the subject are encouraged to research further. 

Inns

On my last post, the esteemed Solomon VK of World Building and Woolgathering (a blog worthy of a look!) described how he forced his PCs to share a room at the inn in order to shake up their expectations of what inns were like. That's a good example of using historical versimilitude to provide new challenges in gameplay.

The inn is a staple of medieval fantasy, and it's particularly close to the heart of many a gaming group - "you all meet at an inn" is such an oft-used start to a campaign that many DMs have gone out of their way to look for alternatives. Unfortunately, the inns most D&D players think of have more in common with a modern-day hotel than anything from the Middle Ages. Most often, every patron will have a private room with their own bed, or perhaps two beds to a room, enough for everyone to comfortably split up. It's the sort of convenience we're used to - but your average medieval peasant would likely find it an incredible luxury.

Some inns might have private rooms, particularly larger ones in larger cities or well-traveled roads. But it'd be more common for patrons to retire to a common room with multiple beds, and often, they'd pack as many people into each of those beds as possible. Sharing a bed with a complete stranger seems unthinkable now, but when space and money was scarce it was simply the most practical thing to do. Even then, sometimes travelers wouldn't even have that - after the bar on the ground floor closed, the tables would be turned into sleeping spaces for the patrons. With the idea of the quaint, rustic, comfortable inn so ingrained in the popular imagination, forcing a party to cram onto the same mattress as a couple of strangers is sure to shake up expectations, and would likely provide for a memorable experience - certainly more so than the everpresent inn cliches would.

For that matter, the concept of inns as a discrete business was far less common than those raised on RPGs would be likely to believe. Many times, an inn was simply the house of one of the townspeople who opened their doors for travelers, who shared the same living space and accommodations. Other times, travelers would have to settle for sleeping in a barn. This might seem risky, but it was generally agreed to be a serious crime to betray hospitality, and many cultures respected this; for an excellent exploration of the concept of the guest-right in a fantasy setting, check out this post from Rosalind Chapman. Another interesting detail is that the conversations between travelers and their hosts were often how news spread in times before mass media and widespread literacy - which means it would be a great opportunity to sprinkle in rumors and adventure hooks, or even have the exploits of the PCs grow into tall tales. Perhaps their stories of recovering treasure from a sleeping dragon's hoard pass from their host to others, drawing the attention of curious villagers who end up drawing that dragon's ire!

For more information, Annwn Magazine published a quite extensive review on the subject, available here.

Adventure Seeds

• At an inn, the PCs must share a communal bed with a few other patrons - one of whom is an old enemy of theirs from the past. Are they plotting something, or will they respect the guest-right? Can they be trusted?
• When their travels take them to a remote village far from any major roads, the PCs find that there hasn't been enough traffic to justify the construction of an inn - and the townsfolk are slow to trust outsiders. How will the party win their good graces?

Feudalism

If there's any concept ubiquitous in studies of the Middle Ages, it's the role of the feudal system. The topic is too broad for me to cover here; I'm just a DM who runs a gaming blog as a hobby, and you shouldn't expect an in-depth exploration of a concept that displayed great variation from time to time and from place to place. Instead, I'm just going to focus on the broader concepts of the feudal system, and how they can be used for gaming.

Many settings seem to assume a modern understanding of how geopolitics work - the law of the land is absolute, and directly centralized from the capital. But that's something that often requires complex infrastructure in order to work; you need to make sure people can get from the capital to any point in the kingdom in a reasonable time, and without important details of an order being lost along the way, to ensure communications stay consistent. Even the ancient empires of Rome, Persia, and China had to overcome this obstacle. And in medieval Europe (along with other areas, most famously Japan), local rulers had a lot more sway. As long as they were paying their tithes, they were essentially left to their own devices.

For that matter, the term "capital" would more accurately describe wherever the king was at the time rather than a permanent residence, but that's another matter entirely.

Essentially, at the very bottom of the ladder, you had your serfs and peasants. They were subject to a lord (typically a noble, but sometimes a clergyman), who they supplied with a tithe, or tax, in wealth or goods in exchange for protection. That lord would then be subject to other lords higher up the pyramid - counts, dukes, and the like - and ultimately everyone was subject to the king. Again, this is a gross oversimplification, but it does the job for my purposes.

Many settings assume some sort of feudalism in the background, but it rarely actively comes into play beyond a few NPCs having noble titles. The fun part of feudalism is that it lets you have both sweeping courtly intrigue that could impact the fate of entire kingdoms and independent points-of-light-in-a-sea-of-darkness, depending on which strata of society you focus on. The Lunar Lands might look like a number of large unified countries on the map, but when you zoom in, each nobles' holding is its own autonymous statelet. This expands the range of stories you can explore. If you want to tell stories of ambitious nobles plotting within the courts, you simply focus on what the king is doing. If you want to make your villain an oppressive petty noble who subjects his people to brutal taxation in order to serve his own corruption, you make him a feudal lord under that same king, who may not necessarily approve of what he's doing, but then the king doesn't have reason to care as long as the wealth eventually gets to him.

In some places, it wasn't uncommon for feudal subjects to squabble among each other, even those under the same liege. Perhaps a lord wants to extend his reach by taking over some territory from a neighbor, either by sending men-at-arms or trying to persuade the subjects to swear alliegance to him instead. If you wanted to incorporate political shakeups into your setting, you can do so while still keeping the status quo more or less the same if they happen on the lower levels of the feudal ladder. If you use domain-level play, feudalism can also lead to a sense of progression as PCs build more and more favor with their betters, and may be granted greater and greater power as their domains expand, going from competing against frontier barons to exerting influence on the higher courts. The same lords they once worked for could even become their vassals, and may need to be called upon in times of need.

Adventure Seeds

• An ally of the PCs can't pay tithes to their lord, and now they risk being cut off from their protection - and with threats afoot, that's too great a risk to afford. Will the PCs solve the problem keeping them from their duties? Will they appeal to the lord instead?
• Two minor nobles covet each others' land, but they're both vassals to a count who would like things to stay peaceful. When one of them has his men disguise themselves as bandits to wage war under their masters' nose, will the PCs discover there's something bigger at play?

Law and Justice

Now this is a fun one. Not always fun for the people accused, of course, but the topic of justice in the ancient and medieval world is ripe for exploration. There were, of course, codified systems of law dating back even before Hammurabi, but their importance has often been overstated by historians and the general public alike (the Magna Carta, for instance, was specifically about royal authority over nobles, and several kings ignored it anyway). Often, laws were whatever the greatest authority decided upon. This ties into feudalism - if one of the duties of a lord was to provide safety and stability for his vassals, then dispensing the law was part of that.

Early in the Middle Ages, courts were typically held at a lord's...well, court. The accused and any relevant parties would be brought before him, or a magistrate appointed by him, and their sentence was determined accordingly, which would then be carried out by a reeve or baliff. This, of course, meant that lords were free to decide the law as they pleased. You could be fined for wearing clothes that were too fancy, or taxed for having a beard. There were some treaties that limited this to some degree at various times and places, but overall, it's a far cry from the consistent and agreed-upon laws modern people are used to. Strictly speaking, a corrupt lord who always ruled in the favor of his allies wasn't doing anything illegal, even if it was frowned upon. And, of course, this makes them very useful as villains, as anyone familiar with the Robin Hood mythos can tell you.

Towns, which would increasingly fall under the influence of guilds and councils of influential citizens, had their own laws - and as such, the law that held in one city might not apply to another. Some towns, for instance, prohibited the bearing of weapons unless they were "peace-bonded" with a leather strap to prevent them from being drawn from their scabbards. The Bergsburg Project, a community-sourced city supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, details one town square containing a stone that was once believed to control peoples' thoughts, so legally anything spoken by anyone touching the stone - no matter how seditious - cannot be punished. I love this. It's the exact sort of specific that seems like it could be a real medieval town law (I wouldn't be surprised if it was directly based on one). It's a concept I've stolen, and one that gets me thinking about what other silly local laws could exist in my setting.

In addition to how laws were decided, the ways in which they were enacted would also be unfamiliar to modern eyes. How many fantasy stories can you think of in which criminals were locked in a dungeon as part of their sentence? This is familiar to us in an era where incarceration is a common punishment for severe crimes, but in the actual Middle Ages, it was more likely that this would be done to keep the criminal from running away before their sentence could be determined. Actual punishments were more likely to involve public humiliation (eg. being put in the stocks to be pelted with rocks and vegetables), corporal punishment (having a hand cut off for theft), or both (being locked in a gibbet on the side of the road to starve). It may seem barbaric to us, but to people of the time, this was simply part of life.

One particularly interesting concept is that of trial by ordeal. In short, the accused would need to perform some sort of task, and based on their response, it would be determined if they were guilty or innocent. The idea was that if they were innocent, God would have intervened on their behalf. For example, if the accused could walk across hot coals without being hurt (or if their wounds healed within three days), they were innocent. And then, of course, you had trial by combat, in which whoever won a duel (either personally or by way of a champion - perhaps the PCs could find themselves filling in) were declared the winner of the dispute. In a fantasy setting, this could be expanded upon with the use of magic to ensure the ordeal works, or perhaps things truly do work by divine intervention!

Furthermore, we must discuss the concept of outlaws. The word originated from the fact that wanted criminals could be declared to legally be outside the law, and thus, anything done to them up to and including murder was legal. However, this did not apply to churches, which were considered to be under the authority of God, not whoever owned the land they were on - and thus, an outlaw would be protected as long as they stayed inside a church (hence the concept of sanctuary). There are a great many quirks to medieval and ancient laws that could translate into some great gaming material, and all of them help make a game world feel more distinct, immersive, and unlike the real modern world.

An Addendum: Since this post was first published, my players managed to exploit the medieval justice system beautifully in a way that used the established context of the setting to their advantage. When one of the PCs was on trial for murder and brought before the lord, the others - having appealed the god of death for a miracle to restore the victim to life - presented said victim alive and well. The lord had absolutely no response to this, as it wasn't a situation he would ever be prepared for...and so he pardoned everyone involved, because if he was unable to weigh in on the situation he had no choice but to concede that he had no authority to act upon it (he is, after all, the lord of the land, and if his word is law, how is the law to handle something he has no words for?). That was some brilliant thinking on their part, and it deserves a mention here to show what players can do with these tools on the table.

Adventure Seeds

• The PCs are in a village where the local cult of the cleric's patron deity practice a form of trial by ordeal - but the cleric finds they (or others they know should be) aren't protected. Has the village fallen out of favor with the god, or is it all a ruse to control the populace?
• An outlaw takes shelter in a temple, insisting that they're wanted for a crime they didn't commit. An angry mob has surrounded the temple waiting for them to emerge, and the priests are growing impatient. Can the PCs clear their name before the oath of sanctuary is broken?

I have many more subjects I would like to discuss, but this is getting to be a long post, so I'm cutting it in half here. Let me know how you've introduced aspects of historical culture into your games, or if there are any other topics I should cover!