Friday Encounter: Tithe Collection

This encounter is designed to challenge your players' expectations of morality and social expectations in a setting that may have different worldviews from their own. In that way, it's well-suited to a non-Flintstonist campaign, as a way to introduce players to the concept that people in a medieval fantasy world might see things differently than they see things today - especially with players who are new to the idea of leaving their preconceived notions at the door when approaching the campaign world. Keep in mind, though, that it's best if the players know this is a non-Flintstonist world going in, so that they aren't punished for making sensible choices.

The encounter should happen in a settled area in a feudal state. The PCs should pass by a small homestead, with ragged crops and a slumping roof. Outside, the farmer, Petro Barisic, is holding onto a young heifer by a rope, and is engaged in a heated debate with an armored woman, Mirta Pavlovic, who wears the arms of the local lord on her tabard, and faces Petro with a stern and unflinching glare as she keeps her hand on the pommel of the sword on her belt.

Mirta is a woman-at-arms in the employ of the local lord who oversees this steading. She has demanded that Petro give up the heifer as a tithe to the lord's coffers. Petro rejects this, citing that he has little to his name, and his cow is getting old; he was hoping to raise the heifer to take her place so that he can provide butter and cheese for his family. However, Mirta insists that the lord's word is absolute. If Petro will not turn over the heifer by the next week, his family will be evicted from the land.

Most players will naturally see Petro as the victim in this situation, and will be inclined to take his side.  His story is a truthful one. However, in a setting that believes in the divine right of the nobility, to contest the lord's demands - especially if the PCs are not of noble birth, or are foreigners - would be considered insubordination, and threaten the stability of the fief. The party might try to seek an audience with the lord in order to plead Petro's case, but it will likely not be easy to convince a noble that he should care for the plight of a single peasant, when he has armies to supply and treaties to negotiate with his neighbors, who may or may not be friendly. Petro's concerns are well beneath him.

Some parties might even try to incite open rebellion against the lord, but they should not expect to do so without facing stiff resistance, as the lord has more resources than they do. If they try to go up against the lord alone, they are up against whatever armies he can muster - to say nothing of any allies he might call upon from other fiefs and baronies. And even if his seat on the throne is threatened, the ensuing power vacuum might not be a step up - it might destabilize the region, or worse, lead to an even worse tyrant taking over.

The purpose of this encounter is not to punish the PCs for doing the right thing, and beat into the players' heads that everything they do is hopeless. It should still be theoretically possible to come out with an outcome that Petro will be satisfied by - perhaps they can sway the lord with careful rhetoric, or find a suitable substitute for the heifer, or even find a way to allow Petro to keep it under his master's nose. But by having such dilemmas come up in play and exploring the realistic consequences of how the PCs address them, you can give the players a firsthand look into how this isn't a world that will work the way their own life does, and prove that they shouldn't expect it to.

Friday Encounter: Double Agents

This encounter assumes a conflict that the PCs are outsiders to, so it's best used as something the party comes upon while traveling on the road. Ideally, at least one PC should have ties to nobility. As always, feel free to modify this encounter to suit your campaign.

Background

Like many small feudal subjects, the village of Rielenberg answers directly to its lord. Also like many small feudal subjects, the results of this arrangement depend heavily on how reasonable this particular lord is. Rielenberg, as it so happens, is under the thumb of Baroness Gloria von Habischem, a woman who believes it is the right of all nobility to do as they will, unfettered by the voices of the peasantry. After all, they should be grateful the nobles even allow them to stay on their land - who are they to complain?

Recently, Baroness Gloria's forces repelled a bandit raid elsewhere in her territory, but the cost of maintaining and raising a sufficient army put strain on her coffers. In response, she subjected the people of Rielenberg to crippling taxes in order to make up the cost. For the people of Rielenberg, who have long felt that the nobles were uncaring and indifferent to their concerns, this was the last straw. The people are planning a revolt in secret, uniting around the leadership of the blacksmith Lorenz Bahr, a charismatic visionary who feels the time is right for the peasants to fight for their freedom. Though they are sure they don't stand a chance in a head-on assault of the Baroness's castle (not knowing how meager the garrison is), they have begun stockpiling weapons and plotting movements to disrupt her patrols in what they hope will be the first step in a long guerilla war.

However, the forces of the Baroness have picked up rumors of these plans. And when the PCs arrive on the scene, it'll soon be realized that their status as outsiders could be valuable to either side...

The Encounter

While traveling, the PCs should come upon either the village of Rielenberg or Baroness Gloria's castle, which is located about a mile to the northeast. Decide which location you would prefer to use. The players may be swayed by whichever side they hear from first, so keep that in mind.

If they go through the village first, they will find the people are struggling to sustain themselves under the burden of taxation - their fields are poor, they don't have much to sell at the market, and they can barely scrounge together enough food to offer a meal at the local tavern. If the PCs enquire about this, the people will explain that they are suffering under the Baroness's taxes. They will direct them to Lorenz, who they explain is forging weapons on the side and hiding them at caches around the village (in barrels, under hay bales, and the like). Lorenz sees an opportunity in the party - as experienced fighters, they might stand more of a chance in taking on the Baroness's forces than any of them could alone. If they seem trustworthy, he will let the party know of the location of his weapon caches and inform them that he is planning on ambushing a patrol of the Baroness's guards under the cover of night in three days' time, where he plans to hold the guards for ransom. He invites them to participate if they wish.

If the party visits the castle first, they will similarly discover that it is facing hard times. The castle's halls are empty and the guards are few in number, making it clear that it was built to hold a larger garrison than it currently does, and everything is covered in dust, as there are not enough servants to attend to its upkeep. If the party seeks an audience with the Baroness, it will be granted; alternatively, if there are any nobles in the party, one of the Baroness's knights will invite them to the castle, hoping that they might be sympathetic to her cause. There, the Baroness will explain her situation, noting that she suspects that the peasants are planning an uprising under her nose - they have, after all, been speaking in whispers whenever the guards are around, and moving around barrels and hay bales for seemingly no reason. The castle surely will not be able to defend itself against a revolt unless it is crushed soon - and she hopes the PCs might be able to turn the tide. She requests that the PCs gather information on any potential revolts, reporting back to her on their movements or leaders. She emphasizes that under no circumstances can the peasants learn that the castle is undermanned, or they would surely be emboldened to attack.

For this encounter to work properly, the PCs should have the opportunity to visit both parties and hear both sides of the story. Both factions feel the party would be able to help them - as outsiders, they would hold no preconceived loyalties. Naturally, this makes for the perfect opportunity for the PCs to act as double agents - they have information on each side that the other side would want. It's only a matter of choosing which side to aid.

Further Developments

If you want, you could easily extend this encounter with the PCs performing missions for whichever side they choose. The peasants, for instance, might request the party's aid with transporting weapons to potential allies, while the nobles might need them to set a trap for the peasants during one of their mobilizations. To make things really interesting, both sides can give the PCs missions as long as they believe they're on their side, and the PCs can aid or sabotage them accordingly. You can keep this going as long as you, and your players, find it entertaining.

The end goal for the peasants will be storming the Baroness's castle and deposing her from the throne, while the end goal for the nobles will be stamping out the leaders of the rebellion. Ultimately, the conflict should culminate in one of these things, and the PCs may well be involved on the front lines.

If the PCs sided with the peasants, the people of Rielenberg will have little to offer them, but they will be hailed as heroes every time they return to town, and the people will be happy to provide them aid. Any of the townsfolk will give them a bed for free if they need to stay the night, and they will lend their services if called upon to the best of their ability. Lorenz will also offer to forge each of the PCs an enchanted weapon of their choosing - it has +1 to all to-hit and damage rolls, or +2 if the attacks are made against a noble or similar authority figure.

If the PCs sided with the nobles, Baroness Gloria will be thankful for their aid and grant them all knighthood, with all the privileges that entails. They will be able to stay at the castle as welcome guests whenever they wish, and she will provide them land on which to establish a manor of their own. This could be a good introduction to domain-level play, if one so desires.

Regardless of the outcome, the status quo will surely be shaken up, and this can be used to fuel further adventures. If the Baroness is deposed, it will leave a power vacuum that must be filled at some point - and her feudal masters might step in, not wanting to leave such a powerful peasant levy unchecked. If the rebellion is crushed, it might well inspire another such group to take up arms some time down the line, seeing the attacks on the people of Rielenberg as a gross abuse of power they are motivated to fight against. And the bandits that plagued the Baroness's forces might well return, too...

Friday Encounter: The Magnificent Party

If I had a nickel for every time I blogged
about a guy named Akira who inspired me,
I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but...

If you've been on this blog long enough, you'll know how much I love feudal drama and how underutilized I feel it is when it comes to creating conflicts in medieval fantasy. If you're looking for examples of how feudalism can create meaningful and interesting situations for adventure stories, I don't feel there's any better source to turn to than the works of Akira Kurosawa. His movies usually take place in feudal Japan, on the fringes of society, in a world of isolated villages, roaming bandits, and nobility that is often corrupt, distant, or both, and they show how feudal societies can make for memorable scenarios to explore that facilitate such worlds while also allowing broader, more sweeping political tensions to take place in ways that they couldn't in more decentralized "points of light" style settings.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Kurosawa's work - and Seven Samurai in particular - has been adapted into so many different genres. The basic framework can just as equally be applied to a Western like The Magnificent Seven, a space opera like Battle Beyond the Stars, and whatever A Bug's Life is. I think they can easily apply to medieval fantasy too, and that's what this encounter looks to investigate. Not only would it be a fun scenario for a tabletop session, it also flips the script to allow the PCs to be defending an adventure site rather than invading it, keeping things fresh!

The Magnificent Party

The easiest way to run this encounter is to have the PCs stumble upon a beleaguered village while on a road, but it could just as easily see the townspeople go to find the PCs elsewhere while seeking aid. While you could drop it into an existing campaign, it might also work as a one-shot scenario, in which case the party could be brought together from a number of different backgrounds, all recruited for a common goal. Alternatively, one could use it as the first session of a campaign to serve as the origin story for the party (it worked for the TV series), though it might be a bit deadly at lower levels.

Background

For a long time now, the village of Tracenka has been under the grasp of a maraudng band of orcs, who demand tribute from the townspeople in the form of crops and other goods. The village is far from the authority of its feudal lord, and the townspeople are growing tired when help has not arrived. Recently, the village elder has received intelligence that the orcs are planning on attacking the village at nightfall - but this time, he intends things will be different. This time, he hopes to recruit the PCs to defend the town against the orcs. But the orcs will surely not surrender without a fight...

The Encounter

This encounter is essentially split into two parts. When the PCs arrive in Tracenka, they will have twelve hours before the orcs attack. This will give them time to prepare for the battle.

Use the map below to plan the encounter and to run the battle. It is helpful to provide it to the players to aid in their planning efforts as well.

Click to enlarge

I recommend using this encounter with my terrain rules for a more interesting experience. I marked a few areas on the map with terrain tags that would apply:

A. Well (Climbable, Concealing, Three-Quarters Cover, High Ground, Pit)

B. Barrels and crates (Concealing, Three-Quarters Cover)

C. Fences (Climbable, Concealing, Three-Quarters Cover, High Ground, Impassible, Ledge) 

D. Balconies (High Ground) 

E. Sheep flocks (Wildlife)

Here are some options for preparatory work the PCs may do before the attack:

• Fortifications:
• A high barricade spanning ten feet can be constructed in two man-hours (ie. a single PC can construct the barricade in two hours, or two PCs can construct it in one). The barricade provides full cover and is impassible. A creature can destroy the barricade in two rounds using their action to attack it, or two creatures can destroy it in one round. A large creature can destroy the barricade in one round.
• A low barricade spanning ten feet can be constructed in one man-hour. The barricade provides three-quarters cover and has the Climbable, High Ground, and Ledge terrain tags.
• A trench spanning ten feet in length and five feet deep can be dug in two man-hours. The trench provides three-quarters cover to creatures inside of it and serves as difficult terrain for creatures passing it. It also has the Climbable, High Ground, and Ledge tags.
• A pile of trash serves as difficult terrain for creatures passing it. It can be constructed in one man-hour.
• Traps:
• Caltrops can be made out of nails and cover a 5-foot square area. It takes thirty minutes to lay 5 square feet of caltrops.
• Grease can be laid over a 5-foot square area and behaves as the spell. It takes thirty minutes to lay 5 square feet of grease.
• Tar can be laid over a 5-foot square area. Creatures passing through tar, or starting their turn in it, must make a DC 12 Strength saving throw or be grappled until their next turn. It takes thirty minutes to lay 5 square feet of tar.
• The village has access to three hunting traps which may be placed anywhere on the map. For the purposes of balance, it takes thirty minutes to lay a hunting trap, including any owned by the PCs.
• Training:
• There are twelve able-bodied men who might be able to be trained into a reasonable fighting force to defend the town. They can be armed and given rudimentary combat training at a rate of one man-hour per villager. For each villager trained in this way, add an NPC scout to the party during the combat.

Once the twelve hours are up, the orcs will begin to attack in waves. Reinforcements will arrive at a rate of one wave per round for 10 rounds. For each wave, roll 1d8: on a 1-2, they arrive from the north path; on a 3-5, from the west path; on a 6-7, from the south path; on an 8, they make a surprise entrance from the east. The waves are as follows:

Round 1: 2d6 goblins

Round 2: 2d6 goblins

Round 3: 2d4 hobgoblins

Round 4: 1d6 orcs

Round 5: 1 ogre

Round 6: 2d6 orcs

Round 7: 1d4 bugbears

Round 8: 1d4 orcs and 1 orc Eye of Gruumsh

Round 9: 2d6 goblins and 1d4-1 (minimum 1) orogs

Round 10: See below

At Round 10, the leader of the band - an orc war chief named Orgha Broken-Tusk - decides that any fighters who can hold out this long against his army must be worthy challengers and descends to the village with his retinue of bugbear bodyguards, equal in number to the number of PCs minus one. He demands the fighting pause so that he and his retinue may engage the party man-to-orc in single combat. If Orgha is killed, however, the battle will immediately resume with the rest of the orcs joining in.

At five rounds after Orgha is killed, or 20 rounds after the start of combat (whichever comes first), the orcs realize the fighting is futile and retreat. The battle has been won!

Further Developments

If the orcs are successfully driven off, the village elder will thank the PCs and agree to provide them with 30 GP and five rations for each party member, plus a single ring of evasion. He admits that it isn't much and apologizes that he didn't have more to give. Still, the party will be hailed as heroes whenever they return to town, and any villager will gladly provide them a free bed and meals. You may want to mark the location of the village on a hex or point map, if using one, to keep note of it in case the PCs revisit it.

The orcs will not attack Tracenka again, having been shown how fierce its defenders are. However, they will not forget how formidable of foes the party was. It is possible they will send another champion to challenge them at some point - or perhaps Orgha himself, if he survived the battle, may become a recurring adversary, seeking a rematch.

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!