"Building a Stronghold"

Preface: I posted this on theRPGsite about three years ago, and stumbled across it while searching for something else. You may see some hints about where I developed my formulation of the the swashbuckling 'endgame.'

"Building a stronghold" is more than the construction of a castle and hiring of mercenaries. It's about becoming a political creature. I think this is what many fantasy games miss, and it's one of the reasons I prefer historical games to fantasy ones.

For this to work, the players must accept that the goals and objectives change as the game transitions from one style of play to another over time. To use a hex-and-counter analogy, it starts off as GDW's The Battle of Agincourt and becomes Avalon Hill's Kingmaker.

From what little I've read of the early days of fantasy rpgs - mostly The First Fantasy Campaign - the players readily understood and embraced this mindset. From my own experience, however, it disappeared pretty quickly among gamers: in our AD&D games in the early Eighties - call it '81 to '83 or thereabouts - building a stronghold was about clearing land and building a castle and hiring mercenaries and attracting followers [and] was followed by fighting off monsters and humanoids who wanted to make that stronghold their next lair and those followers their next meal. The political game remained nebulous to non-existant, in no small part because our strongholds tended to be built beyond the frontier, consciously or subconsciously reflecting the desire to avoid being beholden to a prince and the attendant political maneuvering. Our experience was more like a cavalry outpost in Indian country than the War of the Roses.

So the first hurdle, in my experience, is getting the players on-board with this transitional nature of the gaming experience. Gamers who want nothing more than to play wandering tomb-robbers and mercenaries may struggle with this.

Accomplishing this means enmeshing the adventurers in the political world of the setting, which of course means there needs to be a political component to the setting first. I didn't really grasp this until I was in college, so it started appearing in my games in the mid-Eighties; the relationship between a planetary government and the Imperium in my Traveller games began taking on some nuance and balkanized worlds became my favorite planets for adventure, frex.

Kingmaker provided a lot of inspiration for introducing politics into my roleplaying gaming. Power is gained through control of offices of the state and church, not just nobles and men-at-arms in the field; if one's faction does not possess the sole prince, then one needs to crown a pretender and gain seats in the houses of Lords and Commons or one may be quickly isolated and overwhelmed when Parliament is summoned.

The key idea here is that one's ability to exert influence in the setting must extend further than the point on one's sword or lance, so gaining political power means gaining entry to and mastery of the institutions of state. In a fantasy roleplaying game, this means giving the adventurers the opportunity to join something, to climb a hierarchy other than the experience points table, to gain titles other than those of one's class. It could be an order of knighthood, a college of wizards, a religious confraternity, the Thieves' Guild, or whatever; as the adventurers gain personal power, they should have the opportunity to gain influence as well. A career spent as the behind-the-scenes mercenary strike force of the Emperor doesn't get you there.

By the time they reach "name level," or whatever level represents the lower reaches of the game-world's main figures of power, they should be enmeshed in the affairs of state, able to enter the halls of power and reasonably expect to pull some of the levers therein.

The situations they confront there should not be readily resolved with swords or spells - at least not always. One should need allies, and one should be someone who is sought for an alliance. This means the referee needs to create, and run, a convincing court with conflicting factions as well as allies and enemies abroad - and if those allies can sometimes be enemies and vice cersa, so much the better. The adventurers graduate from simple power wielders to power brokers, using those levers of power to exhance or diminish the levers pulled by others. A fighter who is also the grandmaster of an order or knights and the governor of a royal fortress controlling a key pass in the mountains or a cleric who is the ecclesiarch of an important temple and the tutor to the prince's heir possess the leverage to affect events out of scale with their stats and abilities.

Once you reach this point, in my opinion, the "historical scope" of the campaign becomes tangible and meaningful to both the players and the adventurers. Can your character become a Warwick, or a Richelieu?

This doesn't preclude the characters from reaching higher by any means. The adventurers in this game can also aspire to be a Timur or an Othman, but they may find that gaining an empire is not the same as holding it. A prince often discovers that there are levers of power out of reach of the throne, so one better gain, and keep, allies. The idea of legacy may become a powerful motivation here: Othman established a great dynasty, while Timur's empire pretty much died with him.

For this type of play, one where the characters control considerable resources by dint of office or commission, counting gold pieces needs to be abstracted.

To borrow an analogy from another board game, you need something like the BRPs - basic resource points, iirc - of Third Reich, a simple means of representing the resources of a city, a realm, or what-have-you, and a mean of converting them into armies or fortresses or school or temples or estates. The ability to give power as well as the mean of gaining it should be important at this level, such as placing a henchman in a key provincial government or an admiralty; rewards should be more than, "Oh, and here's this +1 sword I don't use anymore."

The Endgame Endgame

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series, which concludes today.

Over the past month I posted about the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

Earlier posts focused on resources the adventurers may bring to bear as they reach the endgame: social standing and influence, wealth, contacts and favors, clients, and strongholds. These are the tools the adventurers acquire or build as the campaign progresses toward the endgame.

Later posts approached the endgame from the referee's perspective, incorporating adventurous action, presenting a model of social structure, and describing the nature of political conflict.

Now it's time to tie it all together.

It's November and the king demands a spring offensive against the Spanish. The minister of war, Enfou, must choose a commander to lead the attack. At court, rumors suggest that Enfou will choose between the conte di Grognardo and the baron de Bauchery.

The conte di Grognardo is a veteran general, tough and irascible, but regarded as one of the best tactical thinkers in Europe. Grognardo is well-respected among many of the French officers, though he also raised a more than a few hackles for what some perceive as a lack of appropriate regard for social rank. Grognardo suffers from a lack of support among the courtiers as a result; his clientele is small and not well-placed outside of the royal army. Grognardo recently returned to France from Vienna; indeed, he commanded Imperial troops in Lombardy against the French, and whispered questions about the dévot general's loyalties abound.

It's said that Grognardo returned to France to seek a better marriage for his son than he could obtain at home in Monferrato; in fact, the count spurned the parade of daughters of poor nobles that the Emperor tried to foist upon him in exchange for his continuing service.

The baron de Bauchery governs a frontier province. The spring line of advance will cross the province, and the baron is positioning himself to command the army, reasoning that even if the offensive fails, he stands to gain from the money - and bribes - paid by the passage of the royal forces. De Bauchery is a wealthy libertine, 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know,' but he is well-connected at court nonetheless, particularly among the gallicans; it's well-known that he supplied the king with the monarch's last three mistresses, but only after sampling their wares himself first. The baron commanded a regiment previously, during which he was criticised for failing to press a rout, choosing to attack the enemy's baggage train instead and allowing the enemy troops to reform and withdraw in some semblance of good order. To secure command of the spring attack, de Bauchery pledges to raise a cavalry regiment at his own expense as well as commmit an additional regiment raised from the king's provincial subjects.

The baron holds an additional card; if he doesn't get the command, it's likely that the royal troops will suffer logistical problems - the baron has an extensive clientele in the province, and he could readily make obtaining supplies problematic for anyone else who commands the army.

De Bauchery's Achille's heels are the Jesuit prince-bishop who's bishopric is contiguous with the baron's provincial government - the prince-bishop despises de Bauchery, and his own clientele in the parishes is unassailable to the baron - and one of the province's three city governors, a nominal client who is believed to chafe under the baron's rule - he controls the province's only port, which could prove critical to keeping the royal army supplied, and he is likely to use this leverage to obtain concessions from the baron.

De Bauchery is also interested in marriage to a dowager marquise, the highest-ranking noble in his province; normally the king would never approve such a union, as it would create too powerful a powerbase for one of his nobles, but this may prove to be the leverage the baron seeks to gain the king's blessing on the marriage.

The choice of commanders lies with Enfou, though the king can override his minister's decision. While Enfou favors Grognardo for his tactical acumen, the fact that de Bauchery can raise two regiments of his own takes a considerable burden off the perpetually-depleted royal treasury, and the baron's selection also protects the supply lines as well.

In most of the published adventures of this sort, there would be some sort of contrived solution to the situation - de Bauchery is a Spanish agent and a traitor, and the adventurers must sneak into his castle to find the proof in his personal papers! - but this reduces the political endgame to yet another 'bughunt.' The endgame shouldn't offer easy answers.

In this scenario, there are advantages and risks associated with each choice; in a sandbox setting, do the adventurers help the acerbic but brilliant Grognardo or the connected but avaricious de Bauchery? How do their choices advance the character's own interests? What resources are available to them, and where do they apply them? Frex, what would it take to turn the port-governor on his patron, the baron, in order to protect the army's supply lines, and can they raise enough troops to offset de Bauchery's contributions? Or can they convince the king to allow de Bauchery's marriage to the marquise - and perhaps convince the reluctant marquise as well? Do they need to exert influence to keep the decision with Enfou, or do they need the king to override his minister of war in order to back their choice?

For the referee, this means fleshing out the npcs, giving them goals of their own that the adventurers may be able to help meet through their influence, patronage, or wealth - frex, perhaps one of the port-governor conditions is that his son, a monk, can become a member of the prince-bishop's curia, or the prince-bishop wants his nephew to be made a magistrate. This is perhaps where the analogy of the megadungeon needs to be stressed - no longer is it enough to present the adventurers with a roomful of orcs. The complexity, and the planning it requires, increases commensurate with the adventurers' positions and resources.

In addition to complexity, good political adventures involve ambiguity. Political choices and their consequences are rarely crystal-clear, except in hindsight; the less there is an obvious path for the player characters to follow, the better, and every choice carries risks. The expenditure of resources should never be a guarantee of success, and even if the adventurers succeed in their political goals, it's still possible for their political enterprise to fail; frex, the adventurers may secure the command for their candidate, but there's still the small matter of the spring campaign itself, and the outcome of the battle reflects on them, for better or worse.

And so I reach the end(game) of my endgame discussion. Thanks for reading along, and I hope this (1) makes some kind of sense, and (2) can be used in your campaigns.

Strife of Interests

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Over the past month I posted about the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

Earlier posts focused on resources the adventurers may bring to bear as they reach the endgame: social standing and influence, wealth, contacts and favors, clients, and strongholds. These are the tools the adventurers acquire or build as the campaign progresses toward the endgame.

Recently I started posting about the endgame from the referee's perspective, beginning with adventurous action and a model of social structure for the campaign endgame. Now I turn to the nature of political conflict.

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. - Ambrose Bierce

At the end of the social-network-as-megadungeon post, I suggested that political factions represent a synergy of the personal and the philosophical, of the private and the public. While I'm sure most of us accept the notion that contemporary political figures are motivated by a mix of private gain and public service, it can be hard to grasp just how inseparable these two concepts are to a sixteenth- or seventeenth century mindset. In a cape-and-sword setting which draws from the real-world of the period, a career as a pork-product inspector or a court prosecutor a colonel of a regiment may be something that is not only a family tradition but an actual inheritable asset passed between generations.

There's a brief scene in the movie Vatel that encapsulates this for me. The prince de Condé treats King Louis XIV to a lavish visit to the prince's château de Chantilly. Condé is one of France's greatest generals, victor of the battle of Rocroi, but he is out-of-favor with the king, and the visit to Chantilly is to entice the king to give Condé command of the royal army for the impending war with the Dutch. Condé is deeply in debt and hopes to use the commission to restore his fortune as well as regain the king's favor, which leads to the following exchange.

"Condé!"

"Majesty?"

"What exactly do you need to borrow so much money for?"

"The better to serve France, Your Majesty."

In the cape-and-sword endgame, the distinction between what is good for the actor and what is good for the state may blur to insignificance.

More broadly, there's a spectrum reaching from the most rank opportunist to the most ardent partisan. During times of political upheaval against the established order - the English Civil War, the French Revolution, &c - the influence of the true believers may become more pronounced, but political conflict rarely strays far from the "strife of interests."

So what are those interests?

Patronage and venality - the sale of political offices - has already been covered as part of building a clientele. Factions may be seen as politically-motivated clienteles; patronage is used as a means of extending the faction's influence and as a reward for loyal service. The higher in the hierarchies one goes, the fewer the positions available and the greater their influence, and more important their control to the various factions becomes. Patronage and clienteles may be used to secure control over a geographic area; a provincial governor, for example, may attempt to make city mayors (using the Flashing Blades position titles) clients while an ambitious mayor with his sights set on the governorship may do the same, or a bishop may replace the pastors of the parishes in his bishopric with loyal priests. Grands - the wealthiest and most influential nobles - will be particularly motivated to exercise control of both eccelesiastical and secular offices. Patronage may also be used to manage an important aspect of the economy; Cardinal Richelieu, aware that France was uniquely situated to control the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean, but lacked both adequate tonnage of shipping and ports to service them, devoted himself to naval affairs for much of his tenure as minister of state, making himself master of navigation, buying up the various admiralties and the governorship of Brittany - France's most important maritime province - and putting a trusted client in charge of La Rochelle after the Huguenots' defeat, and establishing a chartered trading company. In addition to power, offices also bring with them revenue, particularly offices with opportunities for graft.

Finance - in particular taxation - is a constant preoccupation of . . . well, just about everyone. The tax exemption of the First and Second Estates - the Church and the nobility, respectively - is a source of constant complaints and petitions for redress from the bourgeoisie of the Third. The crown, on the other hand, needs to feed its ravenous maw a never-ending flow of specie, and devises all sorts of methods to extract more and more taxes from its overburdened populace. Popular figures promise tax relief while royal ministers search for new ways to exsanguinate a tuber. Financiers of the monarchy seek stability above all, to insure that the crown pays its bills on time and in full, guaranteeing their own wealth and standing as well as the possibility of upward social mobility.

Families, from peasants to monarchs, are absorbed by succession. Planning for succession protects a family's wealth - including things like titles and offices owned - and may provide a pathway to increasing social status. Succession involves both marriage and inheritance. Though the virtue of romance is extolled by poets, most marriages have more in common with corporate mergers, right down to contractual obligations and assumed debts. Marriages between social peers maintain the status quo and build important alliances, but the ambitious family will look to nuptials as a means of advancing its position. For every family looking to improve its lot by marrying above its station, there is a family struggling to maintain its tenuous hold on the ladder of rank. The combination of an ambitious and increasingly wealthy bourgeoisie and a nobility scrambling to maintain its pomp leads to mésalliances; this is one of the subplots in Molière - aka Shakespeare in Love en Français - as the bourgeois Jourdain seeks to marry one of his daughters to the impoverished nobleman Dorante. Such mésalliances may also be used to secure political alliances as well; both cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin used their positions as ministers of state to arrange marriages for their nieces to nobles far above their rank - Richelieu even managed to marry one of his neices, Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé, to a prince of the blood, le Grand Condé, which further rankled the grands who saw the country nobleman-turned-prelate as an arriviste.

In a society obsessed with social status, precedence is serious business. Street brawls and lawsuits alike could be prompted by a change in the order in which guilds were allowed to line up for processions on feast days, and King Louis XIII once broke up a fight between the prince de Condé and the comte de Soissons over who got to hold the king's napkin. Precedence is an expression of one's power and authority, a tangible cue of one's dignity, and as such it is the object of a great deal of jockeying for position, from members of a guild or confraternity to the household of the monarch. Petitions to the king to change orders of precedence can be expected to excite a general outcry.

Late Renaissance and Early Modern society is familiarly litigious, and the quest for justice in matters mundane and extraordinary involves layers of courts as well as the extra-judicial influence of the monarch. Lawsuits may involve everything from disputes over property and contracts to orders of precedence and the outcome of duels. Moreover both the crown and the Church maintain separate systems of justice, creating another source of conflict. Lawsuits and countersuits may take years to resolve, with several appeals possible, and expediting justice is a powerful boon.

Confessional allegiance dominates the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and there are few more bitterly contested political conflicts than those surrounding the profession of faith. Even where tolerance in matters of conscience is the official policy of the realm, living a life free from religious coercion is a challenge.

Finally, there is honor. Honor is a measure of integrity, and to impugn one's honor is to question one's integrity. In a society based on personal connections, like the patron-client relationship, honor is a commodity to be protected at all costs.

From these conflicts the political milieu of the game-world is constucted, which will be the subject of my next post.

The Social Megadungeon

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Over the past month I posted about the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

Earlier posts focused on resources the adventurers may bring to bear as they reach the endgame: social standing and influence, wealth, contacts and favors, clients, and strongholds. These are the tools the adventurers acquire or build as the campaign progresses toward the endgame.

Recently I started posting about the endgame from the referee's perspective, beginning with the importance of action in the endgame. Now I want to turn to setting the stage for political adventures.

Awhile back, I drew the analogy of a cape-and-sword sandbox to fantasy roleplaying 'dungeons' in which the 'rooms' are people and the relationships between them 'corridors.' Much like a party of adventurers in The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game™ searching for treasure and encountering monsters, swashbucklers navigate a web of allies, rivals, patrons, lovers, and so forth, gaining rewards and facing hazards in the process. There are secret doors and passages to discover and traps and puzzles to solve - betrayal by friends with divided loyalties, unknown allies working behind the scenes - as well in this human 'dungeon.'

With that in mind, the ambit of planning for a cape-and-sword campaign that will progress toward the endgame as described here is akin to creating a megadungeon or 'campaign dungeon,' those interminable deeps which are designed to sustain months or years of actual play. For the cape-and-sword campaign, the megadungeon is the political milieu of the game-world, composed not of stone-walled rooms and corridors but of factions and alliances.

For some dungeon masters, the prospect of building a megadungeon is daunting in its scope, so I think it's important to take a moment and discuss how megadungeons may be put together. First, megadungeons don't need to be 'finished' before actual play begins. It isn't necessary to draw and stock sixteen or nineteen or twenty-four levels with scores of rooms each, most of which may take the adventurers months or years to reach, at the start of the campaign.

That said, a megadungeon does require some forethought, because an important feature of megadungeons is verticality, the connections between levels. Winding stairways, gaping shafts, and plunging crevasses allow adventurers to descend into the underworld; moreover, traps like chutes and elevators may send the explorers deeper than they plan or are prepared to go.

So - with apologies to recovering Stephen R Covey survivors - whether designing a megadungeon or planning for politics and intrigue, begin with the end in mind. In setting out the political players of the cape-and-sword game-world, plan for verticality, connections between the 'levels' of local, regional, national and international actors in the political sphere. Here's how this looks in my campaign, set in 17th century France; though the names and titles may change elsewhere - the French province is similar to the English shire, frex - the basic princples remain the same.

Local politics focuses on the villages, small towns, and estates of the countryside. The major players here are the local lord, the parish pastor and curate, the churchwarden - the lay leader of the spiritual community - abbots and priors, ministers in Huguenot communities, merchants in the towns, the bailiff of the royal courts, and various inspectors and other officials. In port towns, ship captains - including pirates and smugglers - may be important politically as well. Note that by this time the influence of the local lord is primarily economic rather than juridical; with the exception of the provinces which Louis XIV would add along the frontier with the Empire, serfdom is largely abolished and local magistrates - sénéchaux and viguiers - are primarily ceremonial. Confraternities - lay religious fraternities - in the parish and guilds in the small towns are the most common organizations to which members of the this community belong, and participation may be limited to the local elites. One of the common goals of local elites - and a source of conflict between them - is to rise into positions of regional influence.

Regional actors include the magistrates and their courts, city and fortress governors and their garrisons, regimental commanders and their officers, martial magistrates, tax collectors, titled nobles, knights-commander, the bourgeoisie, municipal burghers - consuls, capitouls, échevins - fleet commanders, canons and their colleges, bishops and their curias, intendants - a special magistrate with a royal commission - and the provincial governors and their lieutenants. In Flashing Blades, gentlemen's clubs - an anachronism adopted from En Garde! - salons, and academies in the larger cities are an important social outlet for forming political connections, as are confraternities and guilds once again. For most this is the highest level of political power to which they can aspire as social rank begins to weed out aspirants, so perogatives are assiduously guarded. Factions organized around community elites may strive for control of city councils, bishoprics and governorships.

National political players are the grands - the wealthiest nobles - and Princes of the Blood - those with a claim to the throne should the king not produce an heir - court ministers, courtiers and councillors, generals and marshals, admirals, cardinals, and the wealthiest bankers. Many national actors have access to the king, and may influence the policies of the realm; those closest to the monarch will jealously endeavour to exclude as many others as possible from the royal presence. Factions tend to coalesce around court figures - the king, the queen, the dowager, the princes, and the minister of state - and along lines of political philosophical divides.

International actors in the political sphere include the monarchs themselves, their ministers of state, and the ambassadors who act in their name, as well as cardinals, the wealthiest investors, and occasionally generals sent abroad to serve under foreign commanders. More problematic international actors are the princes, as involving themselves with foreign crowns threatens the stability of France; when the prince de Condé fled France for the Spanish Netherlands with his new bride, to avoid the amorous attention - and intention - of King Henri IV, the scandal was exacerbated by an heir to the French crown within the grasp of the Habsburgs. Political actors at the international level are most strongly movitated by grand strategy, but even petty disputes over precedence or etiquette between monarchs may become the source of political intrigue and maneuvering.

So, in rough outline, these are the levels of our political megadungeon. As with an actual megadungeon, it's not necessary at first to detail all of the possible political machinations which exists throughout the kingdom, but as non-player characters and their intrigues are developed, at any level, it helps to have a sense of how the actors fit into the larger scheme, and to plan for chutes and elevators to trap the unwary - for example, an adventurer in my campaign challenged a romantic rival to a duel, unaware that the rival was the nephew of a lieutenant of the Cardinal's Guard. As previously discussed with respect to clientage, a political actor's reach may extend across all levels - offers of patronage, for example, typically flow from national actors to regional actors, for example - so verticality should be considered from the beginning.

The other aspect of megadungeon planning applicable to the cape-and-sword political sphere is the idea of theme levels. Some dungeon masters are content with randomly generated funhouses or 'mythic underworlds' in which magic can be used to explain and justify the results, but many others prefer to give their dungeons some history and at least a hint of a nod to ecology. Theme levels are organized around a unifying principle, something like the Fungi Caverns, where myconids and vegepygmies vie for control of the 'Shroom-Womb, a cave deep with compost funneled in from upper levels of the dungeon, where the myconids and vegepygmies worship an otyugh as their goddess and seek her favor.

In the cape-and-sword political sphere, the unifying elements are factions. As mentioned above, factions may be organised around individuals - powerful grands, prelates, members of the royal family - or along philosophical or religious lines. Taking my cues from the history of the period, there are four basic political alignments which may contribute to the development of factions. Devout Catholics, the dévots favor alliances with the Catholic monarchs of Europe in order to combat the Protestant heresy in France and abroad. Dévots encourage close relations with Spain, Austria, and the papacy and reject support for England, the United Provinces, and German and Scandanavian Protestants. In domestic affairs, the dévots support the continuance of the nobility’s traditional priveleges and oppose absolutism and the rise of the bureaucratic robe nobility associated with the centralization of royal power.

Their rivals are the bon Français (literally "good French"), or politicals, who consider themselves patriots of France on equal measure with being good Catholics. The bon Français believe that supporting the king should be the primary concern of his subjects and that the greatest threat to the security of the crown, and by extension France, comes from Habsburg Spain and Austria. The bon Français accept alliances with Protestant powers in the service of protecting the crown against those foreign powers seeking hegemony over France and Europe.

Many of the dévots are ultramontanists as well. Ultramontanism is the Roman Catholic belief or doctrine that Papal authority supercedes that of local temporal and spiritual authorities, such as princes and bishops. "Ultramontane" means "beyond the mountains," specifically the Alps, and the original usage referred to a pope elected from outside Italy, but in 17th century France it refers to those who believe the powers and perogatives of the Pope exceed those of the king or the prelates of the Church in France. Ultramontanists strongly resist the concept of the absolute monarchy and of the civil authority of the state over the persons and institutions of the Church.

Ultramontanism is in turn opposed by gallicanism. Gallicanism is the belief or doctrine that the royal and civil authorities of France hold power over the French Church comparable to that of the Pope in Rome. Unlike the Anglicans in England, Gallicans do not reject the authority of the Church over temporal and ecclesiastical affairs altogether, but rather emphasize the role of the bishops, and the monarch and the civil authorities, in managing the affairs of the Church in France. The role of the Papacy in Gallicanism is one of 'first among equals.'

Factions in my campaign, then, represent a mix of the personal and philosophical. Cardinalists - Cardinal Richelieu's faction - tend to be gallicanist and bon Français in their politics, and pursue an agenda which both enriches their prelate patron and earns them a share in his largesse, and advances their goals of a powerful French monarchy able to resist both the Habsburgs and the Church by turns.

Like first-level dungeoneers taking their first tentative steps into the underworld, swashbucklers early in their careers are unlikely to be more than occasional pawns moved by the political actors of the setting; as such, it's not necessary to detail their intrigues beyond where their interests intersect with the adventurers. But as the swashbucklers become political players in their own right, then the 'lower levels' of the megadungeon should be prepared to receive them, and planning should begin, in broad strokes, from the outset of the campaign. These broad strokes - knowing who the political players are, and how they may organize themselves - also make it easier for the referee to improvise should the need arise.

Next, the source of conflicts which drive the political campaign.

Action Heroes

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Recently I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

So far the discussion focused on resources the adventurers may bring to bear as they reach the endgame: social standing and influence, wealth, contacts and favors, clients, and strongholds. These are the tools the adventurers acquire or build as the campaign progresses toward the endgame. Now it's time to look at this from the referee's seat at the end of the table.

In 2003, Atlas Games published Dynasties and Demagogues, "The Sourcebook of Politcial Intrigue," for d20 roleplaying games. Here's what the book has to say about "what political adventures are like."

Political adventures have fewer combats and more attempts to influence other characters than other fantasy adventures. Investigation is often crucial, since it's hard to protect yourself against a rival's plans unless you know what those plans are.

In a political game, most challenges come from rivals and other non-player characters. Personal connections drive political games - the PCs must figure out what the other characters want and how to turn that information to their own advantage. They may be able to launch a counterplot that foils that rival's plans, or turn the rival into an ally by offering a mutually beneficial deal. Words accomplish a lot in political games.

As descriptions of the political milieu in a campaign, so far, so good. Then comes the qualifier.

That doesn't mean there's no action. Player characters often sneak into dangerous situations or fight their way out of them. Assassinations, duels, and other physical challenges settle many political disputes, so the PCs must be ready for anything.

Dynasties and Demagogues next offers a sample adventure, "Deception at Villa Zarios," intended to be read by both players and referees, to introduce some of the concepts which follow. Here's the adventure in outline form.

• The adventurers are invited to breakfast and asked to take over the stewardship of the villa on behalf of its owner, Dona Carlotta.
• The adventurers are ambushed by bandits. (Serio.)
• The adventurers investigate the goings on at the villa, while dealing with a staff hostile to the newcomers, and may discover that the major-domo is cooking the books.
• Don Miguel, Dona Carlotta's rival, offers to buy the villa at a below-market price, and if the adventurers refuse or can't convince Dona Carlotta, a druid comes and blights the vines.
• Don Miguel's lackeys drive an owlbear into the vineyard, to create chaos.
• Don Miguel attempts to burn the place down.
• Should the adventurers save the vines, the workers, and the villa itself, they may expose the major-domo as working for Don Miguel and receive rewards from Dona Carlotta and the Queen's Investigator.

As Dynasties and Demagogues itself goes on to note, "Deception at Villa Zarios" makes a point of including a lot of "running, jumping and hitting things," to underscore that political adventures need not preclude adventurers from doing adventurous things.

Swashbucklers may be many things, but few would dispute that 'men and women of action' is one of the few truly universal tropes in the genre. Consider the career of Aramis, a guardsman in The Three Musketeers who becomes a priest and abbé who is involved with the Frondeurs and goes to England to rescue King Charles I from his executioners Twenty Years Later, and finally plans a coup d’état against the king in The Man in the Iron Mask before escaping to Spain and becoming its ambassador to France. Aramis and the other Musketeers enjoy vigorous careers even as they grow in stature and rank over the course of the saga.

This is true of the historical figures of the period as well. Consider Cosme de Valbelle, who engineered the elections of consuls in Marseille - twice serving the one year term himself - for a score of years and who died at sea in battle with the Spanish, lashed to the mast of his own galley, defending his city to the last. Cardinal Louis III de Guise commanded royal troops against the Huguenots in 1621, a short time after being arrested for challenging the duc de Nevers - a foreign prince and peer to the king, no less - to a duel. Provincial governors and royal magistrates led troops against rebellious subjects, and even town burghers could be expected to deal with lawbreakers and miscreants directly, blade and pistol in hand, backed by their own lackeys.

The cape-and-sword endgame doesn't preclude the adventurers from taking an active hand - and sword - in their affairs even after they enter into the political sphere of the game-world. In fact, the precedent is well established in both the literature and history of the period.

That said, "Deception at Villa Zarios" remains a disappointment as an introduction to political intrigue in roleplaying campaigns, not because of the emphasis on action, but rather because the politics and intrigue are wholly external to the players' characters. The adventurers are put upon by the political machinations of others but have no opportunity to engage in their own maneuvering, outside of some fairly standard mystery investigation. I'd like to say this is because "Deception at Villa Zarios" is intended as an introductory adventure, but this is true of all of the adventures outlined in the book, and of many other adventures and supplements as well - For the Love of Justice for Swashbuckler! shares this same problem - so this shouldn't be taken as a slight against Dynasties and Demagogues at all, but rather a common failing in which political intrigue is reduced to the familiar rescue/capture/steal the MacGuffin scenarios common to most other roleplaying games.

The endgame of the cape-and-sword campaign can - and, considering both genre tropes and historical examples, should - include 'sneaking in and fighting out again,' but the situations and events which motivate the adventurers should feature more subtle, more complex challenges than fight off the owlbear and put out the fire. I'll describe an approach to doing that next, beginning with the web of factions and actors in my campaign.

Unfortunately I probably won't have another installment completed until next week, as my wife and I are heading to Vegas - Vegas, baby! Vegas! - through the end of the week. While I am taking my laptop - yes, I know I'm a nerd, so please, spare me your derision - I don't expect to post much besides a couple of short posts already written, so I beg your pardon and your patience.

All Your Base

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Recently I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

So far the discussion focused on resources the adventurers may bring to bear as they reach the endgame: social standing and influence, wealth, contacts, and clients. Next I want to take a look at that icon of the roleplaying endgame, the stronghold.

Player characters in Flashing Blades may acquire property a couple of ways. First, there is the Land Advantage available to some beginning characters. Taking this Advantage grants the character a townhouse, a villa, a small or large estate, or - on a roll of 20 on 1D20 - a château; the Land advantage also confers additional income as part of the character's annual allowance, which is important as property also requires annual upkeep and is assessed for taxes each year.

Second, a player may also invest with the goal of acquiring a property, as per the investment rules, or purchase an available property. The rules are silent on whether or not properties acquired by investment or purchase come with additional income as with the Land Advantage, so I have a simple house rule which determines if a property also comes with income.

Roll (D6)	Income
0-3	No income from property
4-5	Income as one property lower in Land Advantage
6	Income as per Land Advantage
7	Income as per Land Advantage plus Social Rank 8
Modifiers	-1 for villa, +1 for château

Note that a character of SR 7 or less must successfully petition the king to purchase a property which confers nobility with it; the details of this will be handled in another post.

So acquiring a 'stronghold' in Flashing Blades is really pretty simple - a lucky starting character may even begin the campaign with a castle, without clearing a monster-filled wilderness first or hiring architects and stoneworkers to build it for him. Of course, that same character doesn't attract followers - other than a small serving staff that he pays for - or rule his land as a sovereign baron.

That's because strongholds in Flashing Blades aren't castles. They're cities. And provinces. And bishoprics. And you don't attract a handful of men-at-arms. You command a company, or a battalion, or a regiment, or an army . . . or the entire army.

Consider this passage from Flashing Blades, titled, "Entering the Bureaucracy from Other Careers."

Characters who reach high positions in other careers may, if they are ambitious, attempt to enter the Bureaucracy at high levels. Any character who holds the Title of Count or above, and has the skill Magistracy may attempt to become a Magistrate (on a roll of 9 or more) at the beginning of each year after the start of the game. Any character who holds the Title of Duke or above, may attempt to become a Royal Official (on a roll of 9 or more) at the beginning of each year after the start of the game.

Any character in the military with the Rank of Brigadier or above who (1) has the skill Magistracy, (2) has been a Martial Magistrate and (3) now has a Staff position (not a Commander) may attempt to become a Magistrate (on a roll of 8 or more) at the beginning of each year. Any character in the military of the of the [sic] Rank of Major General or above (or any retired Lt. General or above) who does not hold a Command position (or a Field Marechal who chooses not to go on Campaign with his Army) may attempt to become a Royal Official (on a roll of 9 or more) at the beginning of each year.

Any character in the Clergy who is a Prince Bishop or a Cardinal may attempt to become a Royal Official (on a roll of 9 or more) at the beginning of each year.

Any character who is a Master or Grandmaster of a Noble or Royal Order may attempt to become a Royal Official (on a roll of 9 or more at the beginning of each year. [emphasis added - BV]

In other words, when a character reaches the highest levels of the military, Church, knighthood, or nobility, the next step for ambitious characters is the royal bureacracy.

And what exactly is a Royal Official?

A Royal Official may have the position of Provincial Governor (on a roll of 9+; +1 for having been a Lt. Governor, +1 if Social Rank is 12 or more), Ambassador (requires 1 foreign language and Etiquette skills, no roll necessary) or a City Mayor otherwise. Each of these special positions has its own pay and powers as shown below:

• A Provincial Governor is paid 350 L per year. He may squeeze up to an additional 1000 L per year from the people of his province, at the risk of open revolt. Within his province, a Governor has the powers of a Magistrate. In addition, he has Command of a Battalion (2 companies) of Fusiliers to keep the peace, and as personal guards.
• An Ambassador is paid 300 L per year, and is sent to another country as an emissary (likely countries are Spain, England, The Holy Roman Empire, an Italian City State, the Vatican, etc.). He may also receive gifts from the ruler of the country he stays in. This position is of particular interest to Player Characters because of many opportunities for adventure it offers (special missions, treaties, political intrigues, etc.). Ambassadors always have an entourage, including several other Bureaucrats, a Priest (especially if going to a Protestant country), and some guards (usually from the Guards or Swiss Guards Rgts.).
• A City Mayor is paid 300 L per year. He may squeeze up to an additional 500 L per year from the citizens, at the risk of open revolt. Within his city, a Mayor has the powers of a Magistrate. He also commands a company of Fusiliers to keep the peace, and as his personal guards.

A Magistrate is a powerful figure in his own right, of course.

A Magistrate is a kind of 17th Century Judge and Jury. Provincial justice, and the judgement of crimes committed by people of Social Rank 7 and below will be entrusted to a Magistrate. To pass judgement on a criminal (or framed person) of Social Rank 8 to 12, a tribunal of three or five Magistrates will be formed. Those persons of Social Rank 13 or above may only be judged by the Minister of Justice or the King, and only these personages may overrule a Magistrate or Magistrate tribunal. A character who is a Magistrate may arrest an enemy of lower Social Rank once per year (he is imprisoned for 1D6 weeks). If the enemy is four or more Social Ranks below him, the Magistrate may trump up charges against him (see the Appendix for details on Courts and Justice).

So, a Royal Official governs a city or province, metes out justice - or injustice, depending on his inclinations - and commands a company or battalion of soldiers, or receives "gifts" - a subtle way of describing the bribes offered by foreign princes to ambassadors in exchange for influence at the French court - and an entourage to aid in the performance of his duties.

Reflecting the change from the feudalism to the emerging modern state, a character's power comes less from the land he inherits or buys to the land he controls as part of his position with the society and government. Consider a historical example. After Cardinal Richelieu became Louis XIII's minister of state, he began consolidating his personal powerbase, which included a the governorship of a number of cities around France as well as the province of Brittany; when it appeared that he was about to fall from Louis' favor in the events leading up to the Day of the Dupes, Richelieu planned to flee to Le Harve, the La Manche city that was one of his governorships. Le Harve offered him a place of refuge as well as a point of departure should he need to leave France to escape the king's wrath.

So what good is acquiring property, then? Why bother with the Land Advantage at all?

First, property is still a form of wealth, a valuable one that can be liquidated for cash if need be. A Banker, for example, could take the Land Advantage, sell the property, and use the proceeds to invest or lend, earning interest each year - this can actually be more lucrative than taking the Wealth Advantage. By purchasing additional hectares of land for use as pasture, farmland, orchards or vineyards, a property owner may increase the wealth his land provides.

Second, there is a social obligation to owning land. Per the core rules, for example, an Archduke must own a château and a Grand Duke must own two - per the house rules of my campaign, this applies to Peers of France (duc et pair) and foreign princes (prince étranger), respectively - and lesser nobles are likely to find themselves spurned and insulted for failing to live in the style appropriate to their ranks.

Third, in my campaign property may be used as a means of gaining Favors by entertaining. Balls, hunts, and the like are a staple of noble life, as is the ostentatious display of wealth. In order to seek a Favor, first the honored guest from the whom the Favor is solicited must be invited, on a successful Charm check, with a bonus for the Etiquette skill and modified by the difference in Social Rank between the host and the honored guest. A number of additional guests should be invited equal to the Social Rank of the honored guest - this is doubled if the guest is the king! A Wit check, with bonuses for both Etiquette and Heraldry skill, insures that the guest list doesn't contain any inappropriate invitations.

Entertaining is expensive: each invited guest costs the host the equivalent of one month's upkeep at the guest's Social Rank. Frex, a baron is the honored guest, so there must be ten additional guests, each costing three times their respective Social Ranks in livres to entertain. Increasing this to six times Social Rank gets the host a +3 bonus when rolling to see if the favor is earned.

Guests are typically invited to stay for a week, and various activities are organized each day for their pleasure; a clever host will learn as much as he can about his honored guest and plan activities which cater to his interests, as reflected in his skills. Frex, the baron may enjoy hunting (Tracking skill), gambling (Gambling skill), or chess (Strategy skill).

To determine if a Favor is earned, roll a Charm check, with a bonus for Etiquette skill, doubling the amount spent as host, and for each activity in which the honored guest's skills come into play; the difference in Social Rank between the host and the honored guest is also a modifier to the roll. A successful check means the host has earned a Favor from the honored guest.

Note that the various skill checks describe a resolution system, not a substitute for roleplaying. None of these rolls are expected to replace the referee's judgement or stand-in for the players' in-character choices in actual play.

Last, a property owner may also attract retainers. Retainers, a hold-over practice from the Middle Ages, are armed nobles living in the property owner's household. They may serve as members of the household staff, or simply be 'boon companions' to the owner. Retainers are acquired not by offering patronage but rather providing for their upkeep; in return, they protect their master's interests.

There is one more sort of stronghold common to cape-and-sword tales and games: a ship. Ships confer little in the way of advantage with respect to influence, but they can be powerful economic engines - through trade, privateering, or piracy - and are perhaps closer in spirit to the 'fighter's stronghold' of classic D&D. They are also expensive to acquire and maintain, and vulnerable to a variety of man-made and natural hazards.

Bear in mind that through this discussion I'm looking at how the stronghold of cape-and-sword roleplaying influences the endgame of intrigue. A player character's home may figure prominently in their adventures, of course, and shouldn't be discounted as such.

So far, my discussion of the endgame focused on the kinds of resources which the players' characters accumulate as they gain power in the game-world: rank, influence, wealth, contacts, favors, clients, and strongholds. Next week, it's time to start looking at the endgame from the referee's side of the table, of delivering a game-world in which the characters no longer serve Richelieu or Mazarin, but rather are Richelieu or Mazarin.

Building a Clientele

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Recently I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

First up was social standing and influence, followed by the pursuit of wealth and then networks of relationships. Up to this point, the discussion of relationships between player and non-player characters focused on adventurers in the service of, or otherwise aided by, non-player characters, but one of the first significant transitions to the cape-and-sword endgame occurs when the player characters assume the role of patrons and build their own networks of clients, the clientele.

The clientele in cape-and-sword roleplaying games bears a passing resemblance to the adventurer-henchman relationship in classic D&D. As described in the 1e AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, a henchmen are "useful as a safety measure against the machinations of rival player characters, provide strength to the character and his or her stronghold, and lastly serve as a means of adventuring when the player character is unable to do so." Henchmen are recruited and agree to serve in exchange for compensation including a 'signing bonus,' upkeep, and a share of adventuring rewards, usually treasure. In a cape-and-sword campaign, this relationship between adventurer and henchman is closest to that of a pirate or privateer captain and his crew.

Sharon Kettering is one of my favorite historians of the 17th century, and her book Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Centuy France is a frequently referenced source for my Flashing Blades campaign. Dr. Kettering describes patron-client relationships as, "a reciprocal exchange relationship in which patrons provide material benefits and protection, and clients in return provide loyalty and service." This relationship may feature, "a wide range of possible interactions, or services and benefits exchanged," and, "The relationship is continuous, more than a single isolated exchange." With respect to the analogy of the AD&D adventurer and henchman, the swashbuckling patron and client relationship offers rewards of status and social mobility and protection from rivals as well as wealth.

Flashing Blades characters with Advantages and Secrets like Contact, Favor, and Secret Loyalty are effectively part of a non-player character's clientele at the start of the campaign, or may become so during actual play. A couple of patronage opportunities, such as, "The Patron wishes the character to protect him, or someone who is dear to him, in times of danger," and, "The Patron offers the character a permanent position in his service, with some sort of special deal or pay for services rendered," create a npc patron-pc client relationship as well.

As player characters rise through their career hierarchies, they may also find themselves in a position to distribute patronage, in the form of positions. Aside from the obvious benefit of admitting or promoting other player characters, an adventurer may also distribute positions as patronage opportunities to non-player character allies as well.

In the military, top echelon (general) officers may select aides to serve them.

Each [top echelon officer] is also assigned one or two Aides, from the ranks of the Regimental Officers (these may be chosen from Player Characters, if desired).

Aides have the highest bonus to rolls for promotion, so naming a character as an aide is a significant benefit. Regimental commanders may also promote sergeants and subalterns at will.

Bishops exert vast control over their bishoprics and may distribute many positions as patronage.

A Bishop governs his Bishopric almost like a province. He has the right to choose or dismiss members of his Curia (advisory council) and he may appoint or dismiss Curates and Pastors within his Bishopric.

Again, Church careers are both among the most lucrative and the most temporally powerful in the France of Flashing Blades.

The royal bureaucracy also offers opportunities for offering positions as patronage, but perhaps not as many as one might expect.

The Minister of War appoints and controls the Field Maréchal.

The Minister of State is, with the exception of the King, the most powerful man in France. He may appoint or dismiss all Court Ministers, except for the Ministers of Justice and War. He controls the entire Royal Bureaucracy, and his petitons are virtually assured of being granted by the King. In addition, he may, at any time, raise of lower a character's Social Rank by one (no lower than one, or higher than 15) simply be mentioning him, favorably or unfavorably, to the King (only once per character). Once per year, he may have a character of Social Rank 4 or above Knighted and/or admitted to a Royal Order (again by mention to the King). He may deny any character in the Military, Clergy, Bureaucracy, or in an Order their promotion (although he may not prevent them from buying Rank).

The Minister of State is unquestionably the most powerful person in France whose last name isn't Bourbon, but only the Minister of War can also name a character to a position, and then only one. This reflects the pervasive infuence of venality, the sale of offices by the crown, in the bureacracy of the Ancien Régime, but it also suggests another opportunity for distributing patronage, which I'll get to shortly.

The easiest way to distribute patronage is by becoming an officer of a club or a noble or royal order.

A Club Secretary looks after Club records, membership lists, payments of dues, etc. He may admit his friends to his Club as he wishes.

The Club Treasurer looks after Club finances. He may also admit his friends to the Club.

The Club Chief is the head of his Club. He runs the Club, and may manage it in any way he likes. He may admit his friends, and/or promote them in the Club.

The Secretary of an Order manages the bureaucratics of the Order, makes up rosters of members, organizes Order companies and Battalions, etc. He may admit one friend per year to the Order (provided the friend meets the minimum Social Rank requirement).

In addition, a Master of an Order may admit his friends into the Order, provided they meet the minimum Social Rank requirement of the Order.

[The Grandmaster of the Order] may admit his friends into the Order, and promote them automatically when openings appear.

Club membership is an abundant, easily accessible perq to offer; membership in an order, which includes the opportunity to command a company of knights as well as the potential for entry into the peerage, carries with it more significant benefits, however.

Many of the positions, particularly in the military or the bureaucracy, may be purchased; indeed, venality is what the distribution of positions in the bureaucracy to the highest level of royal ministers. In my campaign, I permit open positions to be purchased on behalf of another, if a prospective patron wishes; in this way bureaucratic offices in particular are available as patronage rewards as well.

Player characters may, in lieu of providing a position as patronage, offer their influence to a prospective client instead. The relationship, from the perspective of the non-player character client, becomes similar to that of Contact or Secret Loyalty from Advantages and Secrets. This clientage relationship can be useful when a client lacks the necessary skills or Social Rank to accept a position as patronage, as a prelude to an offer of a position at a later date, or simply to cultivate a mutually benefician relationship without extensive overhead. Though direct compensation, such as wages, isn't required, the pc patron is expected to pick up expenses when the client is called upon to provide a service; failure to do so may lead to the loss of the client and invite betrayal or retribution. A patron is expected to use his influence to protect a client as well, with similar consequences should the patron fail to do so.

The patron-client relationship which is the building block of the clientele shouldn't be confused with obligations owed by dint of duty. For example, a soldier may command anything from a company to all of the field armies of France, but the officers and men who serve under the character are not clients by virtue of this relationship. The same is true of the knights in a knight-captain's company, or of the fusiliers in the service of a provincial governor or city mayor, or of an ambassador's entourage. It also differs from the mercenary contract noted earlier between a pirate captain and his crew; the conditions under which a pirate crew serves are spelled out in Flashing Blades' piracy supplement, High Seas, and with a few tweaks these rules work very well for other forms of enterprise, such as raising a band of highwaymen, a gang of bravos or cutpurses, or even a company of mercenaries.

Unlike AD&D henchmen, clients are not recruited by posting broadsheets or hiring criers. Prospective clients will usually be found among the non-player characters known to the adventurers; a player character bishop may offer to make a friendly npc priest a member of his curia, or a pc major-general may extend an offer to a npc colonel with whom he's served to be his aide. Players should attempt to identify prospective clients - non-player characters who are helpful and trustworthy - as they move up through the ranks of their career hierarchies in preparation for building their own clienteles, which means the referee should be prepared to run a variety of underlings and peers for the adventurers.

Prospective non-player character clients should also seek out patronage from player characters, particularly when the adventurers move into positions where they can fill positions as noted earlier. My house rule is that if domestic commerce is good for the year, then I roll 3D6 and subtract the result from the player character patron's Social Rank and the difference is the number of potential npc clients who come calling; if domestic commerce is average or poor, then I roll 1D20 and subtract the result from the patron pc's Social Rank to determine how many would-be clients tender their loyalty in exchange for patronage.

While Dr. Kettering notes in her book that patrons and clients often engaged in florid correspondence, highlighted by lengthy affirmations of their mutual affection, loyalty, and interests, approaching a prospective client is pretty straightforward; the player character patron asks for the npc client's loyalty and service in exchange for the patron's influence or a position. In my campaign, this also necessitates a Charm versus Wit opposed check, with the half the difference between the patron and client's Social Rank applied as a modifier; if a position is being offered as well, then the difference between the npc client's Social Rank and the Social Rank associated with the position is added as a modifier, too. Success on the check means the offer is accepted and loyalty is determined as per my campaign house rules.

As quoted above, the henchman in AD&D may help to protect a player character not only from the dangers associated with adventuring but also from other adventurers - a positive affirmation of the expectation of player-versus-player conflict in classic D&D. A henchman also acts as a player character's surrogate when the player character is occupied or otherwise unavailable to go adventuring, as does a client in a cape-and-sword game. This allows a patron to act indirectly, and perhaps at a distace, through the client - frex, the provincial governor may dispatch a trusted client to deal with highwaymen threatening the king's roads through the province while the governor remains in Paris to be near the King's court - and a player may run the npc client in lieu of his player character while dealing with the highwaymen's depredations.

I'll get into more about how players may take advantage of their characters' clienteles, including gaining control of a rival's clients, later, but next I want to touch on that icon of the roleplaying endgame, the stronghold.

The Social Network

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Recently I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

First up was social standing and influence, followed by the pursuit of wealth. While the discussion centers on Flashing Blades, I hope the concepts are portable to other cape-and-sword roleplaying games.

As part of character creation, FB player characters may select Advantages and Secrets, "designed to allow many typical swashbuckling adventure themes to come into play." I mentioned the Wealth and Title Advantages already; other Advantages and Secrets include Code of Honor, Renaissance Man, Don Juan, Sworn Vengeance, and so on.

Two Advantages - Contact and Favor - and a Secret - Secret Loyalty - create beneficial relationships for a starting character. These particular Advantages and Secret also appear as rewards in a number of the adventures, such as "The Man Behind the Mask" from Flashing Blades Introductory Adventures.

As a reward to the characters, he will offer each money, position, or a favor. A character who chooses money will be given 750 L as his reward. One who chooses position will automatically be promoted one rank within a Club, Regiment, the Clergy, or the Bureaucracy, or given entrance to the lowest rank of one of these hierarchies (for which he is qualified). Finally, a character who chooses a favor will be given one of the Archduke's coins, with his insignia on both sides. This counts as a Social Rank 16 favor, but may be used only once (it is really a better reward than either money or position and should be treated so by the Gamemaster). In addition, the Archduke may become a permanent contact for all of the characters, and any character who wishes to may be accepted into the service (and protection) of DeMainz.

Of note here is that a Favor is associated with a Social Rank. This also appears in another adventure, "The Great Markmanship Tourney," from Parisian Adventures.

Those who save the life of the Cardinal (or rather that of his double) will each receive a Social Rank 19 favor, in a private interview with the Cardinal, and are asked to never speak a word of what they know about the assassination attempt to anyone.

Finally, An Ambassador's Tales notes a distinction that Contact and Secret Loyalty are sufficiently different from one another that both may be vested in a single non-player character.

Finally, those characters who wish to, may remain in the service of the Cardinal. This is equivalent to both the Advantage 'Contact' and the Secret 'Secret Loyalty.' Later missions for the Cardinal may be suggested by, or continued from An Ambassador's' Tales (i.e. weeding out the Geheimebond spies in the French government).

With those examples in mind, let's take a look at how Contacts, Favors, and Secret Loyalties may work in actual play.

Contacts provide assistance to player characters.

Any character may choose to have a contact, a Non-Player Character (NPC) who will aid the character in times of need. Such characters may be of any rank, but will help less often the higher their rank. For example, a character might know King Louis XIV, but it is doubtful that he would be at the character's beck and call! More likely contacts might be: ministers, spies, high nobility, military officers, various officials, magistrates, etc. The Gamemaster and the player should decide on the exact nature of each contact.

In my campaign, a Contact may be a reliable source - subject to the limitation of the Contact's knowledge, of course - of game-world information, including rumors. Contacts may exert influence, as per the rules presented previously in the discussion of social standing, on behalf of the player character. I limit a Contact's use of influence on behalf of the player character to "informal, polite requests," "those which are easy to grant, and which are of minor significance to the person asked . . ." Contacts may also connect player characters to patrons, non-player characters who ask adventurers to perform a service on their behalf, such as carrying a message for the patron to a dangerous location, or protecting the patron from danger; however, in my campaign Contacts are rarely patrons themselves. The amount of risk a Contact will accept in order to aid a player character isn't unlimited, however; their aid is voluntary rather than compulsory, and they are not obligated to do whatever the adventurers may ask. A Contact is a conduit for information and a source of small but meaningful favors.

Favors, on the other hand, carry with them a sense of obligation on the part of the non-player character which Contacts don't possess.

Any character may choose to be owed a favor by an NPC. This advantage is similar to Contact in that the character knows a fairly powerful NPC. It differs in that the NPC has to grant, within his power, a request by the character. Once this request is granted, however, the NPC is free of all obligation - and may even retaliate in some small way if the request were too great. Favor is thus a one-time resource, whereas Contact rnay continue indefinitely.

In my campaign, a Favor may be used for "informal, polite requests" under the influence rules, but it can also be used "to force those of lower Social Ranks to perform services which may be difficult or dangerous." This is why the Social Rank of the non-player character granting the Favor is so important, in order to determine who can be compelled to perform a service. Favors may extend the player character's reach; a Favor may be called in to exert coercive influence beyond the once-per-year permitted by the rules.

But as the description of Favors notes, a using a Favor may invite retaliation. In my campaign, a Favor used for "polite requests" incurs no risk, but a Favor used to compel service may result in retribution; subtract the player character's Social Rank from the Social Rank of the non-player character granting the coercive Favor, and if that number or less is rolled on D20, then retaliation follows.

Finally, there is Secret Loyalty.

Any character may choose to have this secret. Secret Loyalty indicates that the character secretly serves some powerful NPC in some manner. This NPC may give the character orders, send him on adventures, etc. But he will also extend protection for the character in particular situations. Likely NPCs for a Secret Loyalty are: high nobility, court ministers, royal officials, Cardinal Richelieu or Mazarin, members of the royal family, etc.

Secret Loyalty is a powerful relationship. The non-player character to whom the adventurer is loyal acts as a dispenser of patronage and exerts influence, both trivial and coercive, for the protection of the player character in his service. Using influence carries with it some risk that the relationship may be exposed, however; as a general rule, roll D20 and if the result is less than the Social Rank of the secretly loyal character benefitting from the use of influence, then the relationshiip become public knowledge. Should this relationship be exposed, then - provided that the exposure did not occur as a result of disloyalty or negligence on the part of the player character - the relationship changes to that of a Contact who owes the adventurer a single Favor. If the relationship is exposed through perfidy on the part of the player character, on the other hand, the relationship with the non-player character is severed irrevocably and should lead to retaliation against the player character.

As noted earlier, Contacts, Favors, and Secret Loyalties are both character benefits available at creation as well as rewards currency in the campaign; as such it is the referee's responsibility to insure, like monetary and other material wealth, that this social currency flows. A patron may become a Contact, or grant a Favor, or ask the adventurers for their Secret Loyalty, and in this way the players begin to build a network of relationships upon which they can call to protect and advance their interests.

As Matthew Miller observed in comments, '"domain level" play' begins with character generation, when these relationships may be first established by the players for their characters. But where the endgame really begins is when the player characters become Contacts and dispense Favors on behalf of non-player characters, and when they attract secretly loyal followers of their own.

Next up, we'll talk about building a clientele.

"Money flows like water"

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Last week I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

In the first part of the discussion, I went over how Social Rank is measured and achieved. One of the means of increasing a character's social standing is wealth, so I want to delve into this a bit further.

Awhile back I posed a question on the Tabletop Roleplaying Open forum at rpg.net in order to suss out a bit about player expectations from cape-and-sword roleplaying games. The first reply was so perfectly spot-on it's stayed with me for years now: "Money flows like water."

Money flows like water

The heroes can always rely on their wits and their swords. All other resources are transient. They may win fortunes with some ease, but lose them even more easily. The Musketeers gambling away the horses and saddles Buckingham gave them, Cyrano de Bergerac throwing away his life savings just because it was an impressive gesture, and so forth. This is partly a thing for the players to keep in mind, but as GM there's a responsibility as well: replenish what's freely spent, as appropriate.

With this excellent observation in mind, let's start by looking at sources of income.

In Flashing Blades, characters begin with a yearly allowance, randomly determined based on background, reflecting an inheritance or annuity, or perhaps a remittance of some sort; this may range from as low as fifty livres (silver coins) per year for a character with the Rogue background to up to 500 livres annually for a Nobleman. The Wealth Advantage may increase this by an additional 200 to 1500 livres each year; characters with the Title and Land Advantages also gain an bump to their annual allowances as well.

Most annual allowances don't cover a characters yearly expenses, however. Each month a character pays upkeep equal to three times his Social Rank in livres. A Nobleman with a starting Social Rank of 8 must therefore pay 288 £ per year in upkeep, but two-thirds of the time the starting allowance for Noblemen is just 300 £ or less. That leaves just a dozen silver pieces to pay for rapiers and daggers and pistols and horses and carriage rides and bottles of wine and bribes and mistresses. It also doesn't come close to covering taxes and tithes, which for that same nobleman come to another 135 £ per year, so unless one's running a debtor's prison sandbox, the yearly allowance won't cut it.

Careers provide additional income, but as careers elevate a character's Social Rank, the character's cost of living rises, and - as may be all-too-familiar to many gamers - the character's income struggles to keep pace. Take the career of a bureaucrat, for example. Annual pay doesn't approach cost of living, here defined as monthly upkeep for one year plus taxes and tithes.

Position	AnnPay	SocRank	CoL
Minor Official	70 £	5	258 £
Official of the Realm	100 £	7	362 £
Magistrate	300 £	10	525 £
Royal Official	300 £	11	576 £
Court Minister	800 £	13	858 £

This disparity between income and upkeep is no accident, of course. Like Traveller merchants and their starship mortgages, Flashing Blades uses personal finances as a means of motivating players and their characters to seek out adventure. In cape-and-sword stories, this is a familiar trope, which the game seeks to emulate. Alexandre Dumas devotes whole chapters to the exploits of the Musketeers to secure their kit for the campaign to La Rochelle, while Alatriste and Balboa turn to capturing slaves in Pirates of the Levant.

Beyond allowances, careers, and jobs, adventurers may seek to reduce their expenditures or increase their incomes by other means. For example, soldiers pay no taxes and priests pay no tithes, so military and ecclesiatical careers offer an appealing option to reduce a character's cost of living. Titled nobles pay only half-taxes, and bishops pay neither taxes nor tithes - again, a career in the Church can be lucrative.

Soldiers on campaign may come home with booty to add to their wealth (and may I add that any game with a booty table clearly deserves its props), and after mustering out may receive a retirement benefit and, at high ranks, a pension.

Corruption offers an opportunity to increase income as well, with some risk. Squeezing the peasants for additional taxes and pocketing the money, or embezzling from the crown, can pad a bureaucrat's fortune. Club treasurers, parish pastors, or the chancellors of bishops' curias can all borrow money to invest, keeping the interest and returning the principal at the end of the year.

That financial investment features so prominently in a cape-and-sword roleplaying game may seem out-of-place, but in fact it's consistent with the period and the historical romances of the genre, in particular Paul Féval's classic Le Bossu (The Hunchback), second in popularity only to The Three Musketeers in France. The riotous speculation surrounding the Mississippi bubble in the early eighteenth century figures in the plot of the story, and Flashing Blades' rules for bankers and investing are inspired by the novel.

The period of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries is the era of tulip mania and the South Sea bubble. It's also the time of the great trading companies like the VOC and the East India Company, and Flashing Blades opens up this avenue to adventurers as well, with rules to build ships and establish trading companies in the pirate supplement High Seas.

Finally, adventurers may take out a loan from a banker, an important option to consider if, for example, a position is available but the character fails the roll for promotion and has the option to purchase the position instead. Borrowing is ubiquitous and a key to maintaining the lifestyle of the wealthy, and adventurers need not be unduly penalized for carrying debt. Per the rules, loans are for one year, but most bankers should be willing to allow the debt to roll over as long as the interest is paid; to make it variable, roll 3D6 against the character's Social Rank to determine if the lender demands that the loan plus interest must be repaid in full at the end of the year.

A character carrying too much debt, however, may find it difficult to obtain additional loans. A character must be able to pay his total cost of living expenditures plus the interest on the loan out of his established sources of income - allowances and careers - to be considered eligible for a loan. A character may attempt to get around this by seeking out different lenders, or by turning to usurous moneylenders, of course.

However creative the players are in managing their characters' finances, however, the campaign should provide alternative sources of wealth for the adventurers to pursue. The published adventures for Flashing Blades provide numerous examples of rewards. Consider once again the 'adventure path,' An Ambassador's Tales.

Upon returning to Paris, the surviving player-characters will receive their final rewards from the Cardinal. First, all characters will be paid normally, as agreed. As [sic] expenses paid by the characters (such as the fee for the Channel passage) will be reimbursed. A special bonus of 200 to 400 Livres will be paid to each character if the secret list of Geheimebond spies is given to the Cardinal (the Gamemaster should gauge the exact amount of this bonus for each character depending upon his participation in the theft). In addition, any character who performed a particularly heroic deed (in the Gamemaster's estimation) to further one of the five missions, will receive a bonus of up to 500 Livres (the exact amount is to be determined by the Gamemaster).

Again like Traveller, Flashing Blades includes encounters with potential patrons and as noted under the rules on influence, services performed on behalf of someone of higher Social Rank should be accompanied by a gratuity commensurate with the task. Patrons may also be persuaded to provide monies for expenses as well by cagey adventurers, as in the example above. As Brad Ellison wrote in the rpg.net post quoted above, it's on the referee to keep this tap open for the adventurers.

"The Rumormill," a collection of rumors in the adventure collection Parisian Adventures, provides examples of patronage and rewards.

One of the finest horses owned by the Viscount de Bouvard (an NPC first introduced in The Fencing Master) has been stolen. It is apparently valuable for breeding purposes, and the Viscount is offering 600 Livres to anyone who can find and return it. He is also offering 400 Livres for the head of the thief. (This rumor could lead the party off in search of the stolen horse; remember, the horse could've been taken anywhere - Germany, Italy, England, or even the New World - for breeding).

Chevalier du Vallier has fallen upon hard times, and is offering to sell his prized Small Country Estate in Bordeaux for only 9000 Livres. (Characters who are interested in buying land may wish to grab this offer while they can; other characters who have large property investments may also be interested in the estate; it is possible that the estate may be in bad disrepair).

Don't forget a good ol' fashioned treasure hunt. Indeed, if a referee doesn't want to deal with finances at all, simply give the adventurers a map to the treasure of Spada and let them set themselves up as counts if they like.

Well-heeled mistresses and suitors may also be sources of income for adventurers. Indeed, a character may choose lovers based on their pecuniary possibilities as readily as their other charms for this reason.

Last but not least, there are the wages of sin. Corruption has been addressed already, but don't forget blackmail, kidnapping, smuggling, highway robbery, piracy, gambling, cutting purses, extortion - all manner of criminal enterprises are open to less-principled swashbucklers. (This will get a blogpost all its own at some future date.)

As noted in the earlier post on social standing, characters in Flashing Blades may improve their Social Rank by accumulating fortunes, as measured by the value of the character's cash and property. Increasing Social Rank also means additional expenditures, not just in cost of living as described above, but in the trappings of status as well.

The ostentatious display of wealth is both historically appropriate and frequently featured in cape-and-sword romances. This was touched on earlier in posts on servants and staff for player characters. It also appears in property requirements for high-ranking nobles as well as in Flashing Blades adventures, such as "The Royal Hunt" in The Cardinal's Peril.

The characters must have at least one riding horse per player character,and a carriage (bought, borrowed, or rented) or they will be laughed at. Next, each character must have a tennis racquet and ball (at a cost of 10 Livres). Those who are not acquainted with the game might wish to take some lessons (for 5 Livres) so they won't look too silly on the courts of Fontainebleau. Each character should have a musket or arquebus for shooting and hunting. The party should have at least two falcons (at a cost of 60 Leach) for the falconry event, and a pack of six hunting dogs minumum (at a cost of 70 L each). All of the player-characters should wear fine dress.

Court life is alo expensive in other ways - characters on the hunting trip to Fontainebleau are also expected to pay a pourboire (baksheesh or bribe) "of 5 to 10 Livres daily" to the chief steward of the lodge or risk being left out of events.

As in the cautionary tale of Nicolas Fouquet, a certain amount of discretion in amassing of a fortune is in order. Wealth that vastly exceeds one's income - and in particular the amount of taxes and tithes paid - may attract the notice of royal magistrates and ministers.

The cape-and-sword endgame may feature rich characters accumulating vast wealth, but a more likely situation is a (sometimes uncertain) flow of money passing through the characters' fingers. This will become even more apparent later on with the discussion of building a clientele.

But first, among the rewards mentioned many times in Flashing Blades are Contacts and Favors, and their role in the endgame is up next.

Class Conscious

Author's note: By request, I am re-running my posts on the cape-and-sword endgame. Originally posted over several weeks, I'm re-posting them as a single series over the next several days.

Last week I introduced a discussion of the endgame in cape-and-sword roleplaying games, the point in a campaign at which the player characters become authority figures in the game-world, where conflicts transition from the physical to the political and power comes from one's position at least as often as from one's sword arm.

First, let's talk about how that position is measured.

En Garde! - the first cape-and-sword roleplaying game - includes rules for Social Level. An En Garde! character's Social Level is determined by a combination of status points gained or lost each month and positions and titles held by the character.

Drawing from En Garde! as well as Crimson Cutlass, Flashing Blades characters - player and non- - have a Social Rank. The Social Scale in Flashing Blades captures the social stratification of late Renaissance and Early Modern society, reflecting both the traditional position of the warrior nobility and the Church as well as the rise of the new nobility of the professional bureaucracy and military.

Social Rank is determined by a character's starting background and Advantages as well as positions and titles earned through both careers and adventuring. It's possible for a character with the Nobleman background and the Title advantage to begin the campaign as a duke with a Social Rank (SR) of 14, but most characters begin in the range of SR 2 to SR 9. As characters pursue various careers, these ranks increase with promotions. Different careers have different ranges of Social Ranks; frex, a character who starts the game as a sergeant in the Royal Army begins at SR 4 and may rise as high as SR 15, Field Marshal; while a bureaucrat begins at SR 7 and may rise to SR 16, Royal Minister. Interestingly, the career with the potential for the fastest rise - that is, the career with the fewest steps and the largest range between its lowest and highest Social Ranks - is the clergy; a Priest (SR 4) may become a member of a Bishop's Curia (SR 8), then a Bishop (SR 10), then a Prince-Bishop (SR 15), and finally a Cardinal (SR 16). An ambitious character could do far worse than to pursue a career in the Church.

The rules also suggest that characters may pursue more than one career; in fact, in at least one instance, it's expected, as a Soldier may be inducted into a Noble Order for being decorated twice on campaign, giving him the title of chevalier and Social Rank 8. Here's what the rules have to say on multiple careers, and on the impact of wealth on Social Rank.

Social Rank may be higher than indicated on the Social Scale in special circumstances. If the two highest Ranks possessed by a character are equal, count his Social Rank as one higher. A character who is both a Baron and a Magistrate, for example, is Social Rank 11 rather than 10. If four positions are held in one Social Rank, count it as two higher, and so on.

In addition, if a character is excessively wealthy, add one to Social Rank. Excessive wealth is defined as (10,000 L x the character’s normal Social Rank). Thus for a Count to be excessively wealthy, he must have 120,000 L in cash and property.

It is possible, although highly improbable, for a character to reach Social Rank 19 (i.e., by being a Grand Duke, Cardinal, Royal Minister, Royal Order Grandmaster, and Field Marechal, and having excessive wealth amounting to 180,000 L!). If a character reaches this point, however, he might as well be King! In realistic game terms, it should be considered phenomenal (and rare) to reach Social Rank 15 to 16.

The 'campaign turn' in Flashing Blades is one month; the required time commitment of an office, military rank, and so on is measured in months per year. As noted previously, when using the career rules in Flashing Blades, "adventures ought to be mixed in at regular intervals (one or two per game year)," similar to the great Arthurian roleplaying game, Pendragon - indeed, in both Flashing Blades and Pendragon, adventuring can be seen as something that occurs in a player character's downtime from their other responsibilities! Thus it's possible for player character to climb more than one career ladder at a time. Careers in banking or a club are especially suited to this, given the limited time demands placed on a character in these careers. Historically many clergy also held positions in the royal bureaucracy or the law, and a few, like the cardinal de La Valette, served as soldiers.

Balancing careers, both by a single player character and between several player characters in the campaign, requires that the players and the referee are flexible and creative. An adventure may arise out of a player character's career, frex, and other characters may assist, either in their free time or as part of their own careers; the aid rendered by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis to d'Artagnan in his service to the Queen on the matter of her missing jewels is a classic example in cape-and-sword tales. Players may choose to pursue some synchronicity in their careers, to be mutually supportive of one another.

In addition to mesuring the relative position in society of a character, Social Rank also provides a character with influence.

Rank hath privileges. The positions held to gain Social Rank have many powers of their own, but possessing e Social Rank itself grants a character influence. Informal influence cannot be measured in game terms. A person of high Social Rank will be treated with deference and politeness by all. He will be overly praised by his sycophants and overly despised by his enemies.

Sometimes, however, influence may have direct effects on the game, in one of two ways. First, any character may expect informal, polite requests to be granted by those three Social Ranks or more below his own, if he can roll his own Social Rank or below on a D20. Thus a Marquis could ask a small favor of a Baron or a Bishop, and have his request(s) granted on a roll of 13 or less on a D20. Polite requests are defined as those which are easy to grant, and which are of minor significance to the person asked (such as a Magistrate waiving a small fine, a Captain looking after someone in his company, a Baron allowing hunting on his estate, etc.). The possibilities are endless. Polite requests, no matter how polite they may be, will also often be influenced by bribery or reciprocal favors.

In addition, influence of Social Rank may be used, on rare occasions, to force those of lower Social Ranks to perform services which may be difficult or dangerous. Such services may only be requested of one six or more Social Ranks below the character, and may only be asked once per year (unless the character increases his or her Social Rank that year, in which case, he may ask 2 services). Such services may not be outrageous (e.g. asking an NPC to lay down his life for the character, or to give the character large sums of money) and the request must be within the power of the person requested. The person requested has a choice: to grant the request, or to automatically lose one Social Rank himself. A small reward or bribe is almost always offered for such services. Examples of difficult requests might be a Treasurer of a Royal Order bullying a rich merchant to go into an investment with him (perhaps with the lure of possible profits), a Lt. General forcing a townsman to quarter troops in his house, a Grand Duke squeezing a Secretary of a Noble Order to admit him to the Order, etc. Of course, some such requests may be granted through threats or violence, rather than influence.

I like these rules very much, though the degree of deference shown between social levels can be a bit jarring to players raised in our more egalitarian - in principle, if not always in practice - world.

Along similar lines, as an unwritten - so far - house rule for my own campaign, I allow the difference in Social Rank between two characters to modify certain Charm-based skill checks, such as Captaincy and Seduction. I did this using the Social Standing attribute score in Traveller years ago, and Thijs Krijger, moderator of the Flashing Blades Yahoo group, used this in his house rules for mistresses (which are sadly absent from his blog). In some cases, a non-player character in the service of another may use their master's Social Rank, frex, a guard on the gate of the château de Bauchery uses the baron's Social Rank of 12 rather than his own rank of 3 in determining if a Captaincy check will persuade him to stand aside.

The rules for influence are an important part of the endgame. Here we see a glimpse of how characters exert power, as they ask for - or compel - favors from subordinates. A character with a high Social Rank becomes akin to a chess master, identifying where and how to exercise influence to achieve goals. This will become particularly important in discussing how to build and maintain a clientele later on.

Beyond simply increasing in rank as one rises in a career or careers, Social Rank is an expected part of the game's reward system. Here's an example from the Flashing Blades 'adventure path,' An Ambassador's Tale.

Second, each character of Social Rank 4 or above who participated in all five adventures of the campaign, and has successfully completed his mission in each, has performed a great service for the King and realm. If untitled, he will be given the rank of Chevalier. If he is already titled, he will advance by one rank (i.e. from Count to Marquis). Those characters of Social Rank 3 or below will be given a commendation of honor (which will increase their Social Rank by 2 points) and an extra 100 Livres.

Third, each character in the Military or Bureaucracy, or in a Club or Order, may make an immediate roll for opening. If there is an opening, the character will be promoted. Characters in the Cardinal's Guard Company, or in the Clergy will be automatically promoted one rank. Characters who are not associated with any particular branch of government will be allowed to join the Military (in the Cardinal's Guard, as a Sergeant), the Clergy (as a Student of Theology) or the Bureaucracy (as a Bureaucrat) if they wish. A special month must be spent in learning the required skills if the characters are unqualified.

Finally, those characters who wish to, may remain in the service of the Cardinal. This is equivalent to both the Advantage 'Contact' and the Secret 'Secret Loyalty.'

Another unwritten house rule in my game is that a Social Rank bump given as a reward remains until the character reaches that rank as part of the normal progression in his career; frex, a member of a Bishop's Curia who receives a two-rank increase to his Social Standing stays at SR 10 on becoming a Bishop - his position in the Church rose to match his reputation.

Lastly, it's important to remember that a character's Social Rank also determines that character's monthly upkeep. With that in mind, I'm going to pivot to wealth in the next discussion of the cape-and-sword endgame.