Medieval Mayhem - A Barons War Project

The main outline of the campaign will be to have the players compete to earn enough prestige to become the Earl of Bedfordshire ( a fictional title).

This section will grow as I think of more things and add to it.

Each player will take the role of a landed knight. To divide the county up I have used an old map of Bedfordshire which is divided into hundreds.

Each player will be allocated a Hundred to be their territory.

Each player will be able to locate two villages within their territory.  This will be done ahead of the campaign day start. by each player without knowing where the other players will locate their villages.

As GM I will reveal the final map on the day if the campaign.

As described above each player will be allocated a portion of land to be theirs. I have generated a hex map of Bedfordshire, which I will publish on here after the event. Just to keep any players who may see this in the dark.

The aim if the campaign is to play out over either one or two day long sessions with each game turn lasting 1 hour.

This will be divided into

15 mins – for campaign moves and purchases if buildings and training soldiers etc

45 mins – for battles to take place. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to use barons war as games can be quick. It is also the reason I want to prepare the players with intro games.

Creating forces

Each Lord will have a starting retinue of approximately 500 points. Although I will be translating the points into upkeep costs. So each player will have decisions to make.

In addition they will have to develop their territory to ensure they can generate enough income to sustain their retinues.

Territory

Each player will be able to manage their lands by adding features that will generate income and man power which they will need to build their forces. To capture nearby settlements etc.

Developments

Examples of developments are going to be.

• Farms – crops and animals
• Religious – Churches, abbey’s and monestaries
• Village – blacksmith, bakery, tanners, fletchers, houses etc
• Castles – these will be limited to one per lord. But will be small , medium and large.

External Forces

In medieval society there were other forces at work besides the local lords.

These will come in the form of Church and State, both very powerful.

At a local level these will be represented by the following powers

• The Bishop – who will be doing god’s work of controlling all the church income in the form of tithes and issuing punishment for evil doers with the worse being excommunication or sending lord’s off on a crusade.
• The Sheriff – who will be enforcing the kings will and be responsible for collection of Taxes and issuing permissions to build castles etc

Other forces that will come into play are the roving band of Outlaws who will be ever willing to steal from the rich and give to the poor. The outlaws will of course be supplemented with and desertions from the forces of a lord who fails to pay his retinue or has to disband his troops due to lack of income.