Igelfeld Family/Von Igelfeld family Memoirs/Letters

Introduction

It is truly my great pleasure to be given leave to write in this grand chronicled work, for it is the dream of many a young Igelfeld to someday contribute to the Von Igelfeld Family Memoirs. I am Marshal Moritz Von Igefeld, Knight of Golden Farrow and mentor of Caerwyn. The letters that follow are those I have shared with many a young noble starting out within the lands of Caerwyn, they have been reworked and refined by the questions and suggestions of my students who I now am glad to refer to as friends. A great deal of time and love has gone into the letters that follow. Please, if you are a mentor and desire to use them do not claim them as your own, give credit to the Von Igelfeld family Memoirs.

Beginning the Journey

Greetings, My name is Moritz Von Igelfeld, I am Marshal of the Golden Griffins and mentor of Caerwyn. It is my great pleasure and duty to show you the basics of being a noble and the customs of our realm. I want to make sure that your experience here is as fruitful and enjoyable as possible, so lets get started.

The first thing you are going to want to do is introduce yourself to the realm with a simple message; address it to the nobility of Caerwynn, give your name, state you are in need of a liege, and give some background if you like (talk about your family history for Role Play purposes). having a liege is the best way for you to get gold at this point in your career. You will want to read the bulletins available in the "Information" section for our leaders have posted important information there. Please let me know if you have any questions about what you see there.

over the next two weeks I shall be sharing many lessons with you that shall help you to understand about being a noble. There is a lot to cover and most of it shall be simply the basics. However, if you are interested in advanced study in any area that we cover feel free to inform me and I shall help you as best I can.

Signed,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

(if you are having any trouble with understanding movement and turns, read this page McKay Mentoring Environment & Turns it is quite helpful about the basics but is a little bit lengthy)

Gold

My dear student,

Congratulations on finding a liege, it can be a difficult task to be sure, but you managed quite well. Your liege shall be giving you a share of the regions taxes in exchange for your services so it seems fitting to discuss how you shall be using your income.

First off, you are going to be paid in bonds. Bonds are gold that is stored in the banks of the realm. Now bonds are equal to gold, but you cannot spend bonds. Therefore my friend, if you need to spend bonds you will first have to travel to a city to convert them to gold. As for what you shall be spending gold on there are a couple of primary uses and some secondary.

Primarily, you will be using your gold to recruit your troops, pay them, maintain them, and train them, more on this in the next lesson. Also, starting out you will be using gold to enlarge your estate, which allows you to have a greater impact on the region, and as I see it a more comfortable living space when home (just for RP purposes). Quite often your Liege will assist in the expanding of your estate.

Secondary uses for gold include sending it back to your family, training your skills, and giving to other nobles, religions, or guilds. The first two options are considered slightly selfish but definitely have advantages. If your family becomes wealthy, you can use their gold to create claims on a region or increase your tax income. If you train your skills significantly (Spend all your gold for several months) you can become quite competitive in tournaments. On the other hand giving away extra gold has its benefits also, not as tangible but still significant. If you are charitable to your fellow nobles it can help you in gaining allegiance from them, which can help significantly when elections roll around.

That being said it is always prudent to save your gold as much as possible, for you shall need it come time to pay your men, recruit them, or repair their equipment. I hope you have found this to be both informative and useful. As always do not hesitate to ask me any questions you may have as I love to hear from my students.

Your mentor,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

Unit Maintenance

My dear student,

Remember that I said we would talk about the primary uses of gold next lesson? well my friend, this is the next lesson and I am no liar, so unit maintenance and recruitment is the topic of this letter.

starting out you are going to be a warrior, other options will become present themselves later on, but being a warrior means that you shall be leading your men into battle on behalf of our king. You appear to have some men already, but when you decide to recruit more or new troops, you will have to go to our capital city, Barad Lacirith. Now the amount and type of men you can recruit is determined by your reputation which we shall discuss later. Right now you are able to command infantry, archers, and mixed infantry, after some time fighting you will be able to command special forces and cavalry.

Once you have your men you are responsible to take good care of them and if you don't it will reflect poorly on you. luckily, your men are rather easy to take care of because you only need to pay attention to a few things; morale, equipment damage, payment, and training.

Morale goes up and down, depending on what your men are doing and for the most part it shall remain high If they are paid and their equipment is in good shape. However, if you men are not paid in a timely manner, about once every five days, or their equipment damage becomes greater than 40%, they will become unhappy. If for some reason your men become really unhappy you can let them rest for a while or better yet go to a city and pay for some entertainment.

over time your equipment will get damaged, when you fight, when you train, when you wait. anything and everything will damage your men's equipment but damage accrues slowly so don't worry to much. In order to fix your equipment it is necessary to go to one of our cities to visit a blacksmith. It is preferable to repair equipment whenever you have the chance.

Now I know that you want your unit to be as good as it can be, and the only way to make them better is to train them. focusing on training will enable your men to use their equipment better and teach them to get along and thereby raise cohesion.

That is all for now my friend, I know this is a lot to cover and there are other important facts about units I shall discuss with you later. As always feel free to ask any question that comes to mind and I shall do my best to assist you.

Your mentor,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

Hierarchy

My dear student,

Since you now know how to recruit and maintain your unit, it is high time we talked about who and for what you are serving my friend. As one would expect with any large gathering of nobility, a strict hierarchy is at play. Well, two actually: political and military.

The most basic and important ideal of our realms hierarchy is this: "From the King to the nobles to the filthy peasants our foremost allegiance is to the realm. The King is the realm."

Political Hierarchy starts with the King who has the power of governance and overseas all the operations of the realm. Most of his dealings are with the other high ranking officials in government as he is not a micromanager. Given the sovereignty of the position, it is sometimes looked on a treason to disobey the King. Next are the Baron’s who direct the regions who are under the control of the their city. Then the region lords, and lastly those who serve under the region lords such as you and me.

Military again stats with the King, but in truth he does not have much say in military matters as all military matters are directed by the General. The General is concerned only with the large scale strategy of military movement. He tells the Marshals what the objective is and allows them to determine how to achieve it. The marshals are in charge of making sure that the generals orders are followed by those under them and the objectives are achieved.

Those are the basics of realm Hierarchy if you want to know more about any of the positions discussed above please do not hesitate to ask, as always I would love to get a letter from you.

Your Mentor,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

Unit Tactics

My dear student,

One of the hardest aspects of battle to fully grasp is unit tactics. Largely this shall be handled by generals and marshals, and they shall inform you of how to deploy your men, and because of that this lesson shall cover simply the basics of unit tactics and how to follow orders. However, if you would appreciate further instruction I have it available for you.

There are four aspects that one needs to pay attention to when setting your unit: position, formation, withdrawal percentage, and behavior. Position (front, middle, back, rearguard) determines where your unit stands when the battle begins. Formation (line, box, wedge, skirmish) is quite simple and self explanatory as it determines your units formation. Withdrawal percentage determines after how many casualties your unit will retreat from the field, and lastly behavior (evasive, defensive, normal, aggressive, murderous) determines weather your unit gets involved in a battle, and how or if they advance when fighting. Often orders will appear like this:

Infantry:normal - Middle - box - withdraw: 75%
Archers/Mixed Infantry:defensive - front - line - withdraw: 30%
Cavalry:normal - rear - wedge - withdraw: 30%

Now, after what was just explained I believe you can figure our what these orders mean, the order is Behavior, position, formation, and withdraw position. As always if you have any questions I am more than happy to hear from my students.

Your Mentor,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

Reputation

It seems that we have been talking quite a lot about your troops and your loyalties. Now I think it is time we talked more about you and your reputation. There are two major aspects of your reputation that are easily calculated and understood. The other is the more important and harder to grasp.

Honour and prestige are the quantifiable aspects of your reputation, and for the most part represent how well you are known by the lesser nobles and peasants of the land. From simply being in battles you will gain honour, for in truth it represents how courageous people believe you to be, and It determines how many troops you are able to lead. Honour is relatively easy to raise but prestige on the other hand can be a very slow process. Prestige is a representation of how well you are known, therefore it is slightly harder to get. It can be raised more quickly by by participating in more significant battles. In some realms a noble must have a certain level of prestige and honour in order to run for the higher level offices such as judge and ruler.

The other aspect of your reputation that you shall hardly ever hear mention of is your social reputation. it is unquantifiable and immeasurably important, for it determines elections and appointments, truly it is the only way to progress up the Hierarchy. The only way to raise it is to be involved in the realm, send letters to your realm, attend parties, and state your opinion frequently. However, unlike honour and prestige, it is possible to damage you social reputation quite easily. Insult the wrong person or go against the consensus one time to many and regaining the trust of others will take considerable time. The way you can judge how good your reputation is, is by entering an election, but running and loosing to often can hurt your reputation as it shall make you look power hungry. Your social reputation is the one you must guard most closely, for it is the only one that can be ruined completely.

Your mentor,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld

Graduation

Congratulations my friend, today marks the end of your studies. It has been my great pleasure to guide you through this learning process and may I say I am truly proud of you. Looking back we can see how very far we have come since you first arrived, you have learned so much about being a knight and all the aspects that come along with it. I want you to know that although our journey together as mentor and student is coming to an end, it does not end our relationship for I shall always be here for you, to answer any questions and help you in any way I can. This is a very exciting time for you as so many options shall open up once you finish your studies. You will be able to change your class and explore the vast worlds that different focuses allow, and as always my friend, if you have any questions feel free to write me, for I love hearing from my friends.

Signed,

Marshal Moritz Von Igelfeld