Author: stevenattewell

If Robert had brought Mya Stone to King’s Landing, what sort of social status/lifestyle could she have had there? Can you give any historical examples of royal illegitimate daughters that were significant figures in their fathers’ court?

I think it would have counted against Mya that her mother was not merel a commoner but a servant to boot, compared to Edric Storm’s mother being a lady of House Florent.

In terms of royal illegitimate daughters – well, depending on whether we count Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, given that their illegitimacy was more a political issue and many people didn’t accept them as such – it’s hard to go wrong with the prolifically promiscuous Charles II’s many, many illegitimate children. With Barbara Villiers (Duchess of Cleveland), Charles had Charlotte Fitzroy, who would become Countess Lichfield, and Anne Fitzroy, who would become Countess of Sussex; with Elizabeth Boyle (Viscountess Shannon), he’d have another Charlotte FitzRoy who became the Countess of Yarmouth; and with Moll Davies (actress), he had Mary Tudor, and married (although later divorced) the Earl of Derwentwater). 

Any other prominent royal illegitimate daughters, @goodqueenaly?

Running a tabletop RPG in sub-Roman Britain

opinions-about-tiaras:

xxxdragonfucker69xxx:

yourphysicsiskarkatrocious:

ancient-rome-au:

Pros

  • impress your friends with your pronunciation of unfamiliar Welsh phonemes
  • it’s your campaign, so you can retcon druids as having never been exterminated by the Romans because they had magic
  • druids and bards are not just character classes but actual social roles
  • many good opportunities for NPCs to say “What have the Romans ever done for us?” and “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!”
  • no need to come up with your own map; Google has you covered

Cons

  • horrify Welsh people with your extremely bad pronunciation of common Welsh phonemes
  • extremely sparse contemporary literary sources for the period; what little we have is problematic in its reliability
  • the druid class in Dungeons & Dragons is laden with two or three centuries of ahistorical baggage
  • Arthurian canon is a mess

@xxxdragonfucker69xxx

#surely Arthur is considerably post Roman?

NOT ACCORDING TO GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, WHOSE HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE HAS ARTHUR FIGHTING IN GAUL AND PREPARING TO MARCH ON ROME ITSELF, ONLY TO BE DISTRACTED AT THE LAST MINUTE BY HIS USURPATION BY MODREDUS (BETTER KNOWN TODAY AS MORDRED).

oh well if we’re listening to monmouth then anything goes

Hey, he’s still better than T.H White, whose Arthur is not just post-Roman, but post-Norman.

If you’re looking for good sourcebooks for such a campaign, TSR put out some historical sourcebooks for AD&D 2nd Edition (reading them as a kid helped to start me down to the road to a history PhD, so watch out, you might get hooked). 

The Celts sourcebook has some more “grounded” Druid and Bard classes, and there’s some useful stuff for the sub-Roman period that you can cobble together between the Vikings sourcebook, the Rome sourcebook, and the Charlesmagne sourcebook.  

Is a bastard from a noble family still considered nobility and above merchants?

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

Yeah, mostly. Hence the whole thing about “Great Bastards” vs. bastards, or castle-born vs. not. 

You have to be acknowledged, tho, don’t you? Your noble parent has to say “yes, this is my child.”

Socially speaking Edric Storm and Mya Stone occupy two VERY different levels of society despite having the same father, and that was largely determined by Robert acknowledging the former and not the latter. Mya is a commoner, a peasant. Edric is a young noble. Everyone KNOWS Mya is Robert’s daughter but because there was never a formal acknowledgement that counts for jack shit.

Or am I way off base here?

Both are acknowledged, but Mya Stone’s mother was a commoner, Edric Storm’s mother was a noblewoman.