Player Holdings in Aurikesh

My Aurikesh campaign has 149 sessions under its belt at this point. Fourteen of those sessions are in 2024, which is more than we’ve had in some whole years. The highest-level characters are 11th to 13th level. Because my personal “old-school” is AD&D 2e, as the players reached 9th level (“name level”), I started introducing a few more rewards that were estates and similar holdings.

It would be great to have some coherent rules for these extraordinary assets. It’s just that 5e’s bastion rules from Unearthed Arcana were… how to put this… inside-out from what they needed to be, so I’m largely ignoring them and building my own thing. Also, the things my PCs are receiving don’t necessarily expand in the way that system proposed. So I’m going to write about current player holdings and things I envision as future holdings, as a way to develop this idea.

(If you’re a high-level player in my game and your character isn’t part of this list, perhaps specifically a 13th-level ranger, I haven’t forgotten you. I have an idea or two that might or might not be a direction you want to go. This is a topic for future conversation.)

Lanth’s Estate

My wife’s fighter was granted an estate by a noble who had been neglecting the house for most of her life. The estate includes a manor house, a village with a mixed population of humans, kagandi, and veytikka, and a new village of goblins and goblin-fey. (In Aurikesh, goblins and goblin-fey are unusual but not objectionable neighbors or tenants.) The estate is about three hours’ ride from Chardecum, over poor-quality roads.

Main Building: Misericordia House (manor houses must have fancy names)

Named NPCs:

·         Caretaker: Annacol Kinsteel. Young and inexperienced, but hardworking.

·         Groundskeeper: Carmen Aldana. A woman of very few words.

·         Steward (manages tenant obligations): Oridana Kinsteel. Annacol's aunt, very influential in the village. Firing her would cause significant problems.

·         Eventually, Lanth’s family

Barracks: Lanth has laid plans to construct a barracks, stable, and training yard for the Sapphire Banner, so that they can be stationed somewhere that can take better care of them than the grounds outside Chardecum.

Named NPCs: Lady Sapphire, captain of the Sapphire Banner

Village: Colina Seca

Population: 98 – humans, kagandi, veytikka
Products: Rent, grain, fodder, cattle for beef and leather. Potential for vineyards suited to sherry and fortified wine.

Village: Doimhneacht (pronounced Devnacht)

Population: 55 – earthen goblins, goblin-fey, hobgoblins, bugbears
Products: Alchemical wire. Potential for memory trade, pottery, fey wine, and rent.
Named NPCs: Twistmouth. Twistmouth is a powerful fey creature that lives in a well in the village, able to grant incredible boons and gifts.

That’s basically the narrative foundation. From that, I want to build some mechanics that support potential growth and change. I need the system to accept narrative inputs (ways the story can modify dice rolls) and create narrative outputs (adventure hooks and story outcomes), as well as resource costs and resource generation. I’m going to toss some stuff out and see what it looks like when mapped to other holdings.

Holding: Large, level 2 (after the barracks are built)
Personnel: 153 civilians, 200 cavalry, 200 support staff
Common Assets: Arable land with water access (grain, cattle)
Rare Assets: Fiercely defended
Unique Assets:
Common Drawbacks: Neglected infrastructure (roads, bridges)
Rare Drawbacks: Quartering a large military force
Unique Drawbacks:

The Dock Ward

Named NPCs:

• Amiraali Dakkost Toriva (lives in the High Ward, but influential here)

• Captain Anvalo Siyye - the last surviving ship's captain from the beruch exodus

• Retiuwa Lachon (lives in the High Ward, but influential here)

• Santos Coinsteel - surviving leader of Alcande Silvergrove's criminal organization; still influential with human and kagandi street gangs.

Residents: 3,500 (40% humans, 35% kagandi, 15% beruch, 8% veytikka, and 2% goblinkind)

Products: Services (sailors, longshoremen, laborers, hospitality and entertainment)

Ship's goods (netmaking, sailmaking, etc.)

Brewing, baking

Shipping

Holding: Large, level 1 (reflecting the general poverty of the Dock Ward -- Alcande had extracted huge amounts of wealth from the Ward for over a decade)

Personnel: 3,500; 520 beruch

Common Assets:

Rare Assets: Loyal and unified beruch populace

Unique Assets: The Sorrow of Ychirra (beruch evacuation ship)

Common Drawbacks: Disorganized criminal gangs

Rare Drawbacks: Cults in open conflict with one another

Unique Drawbacks:

The Sorrow-Born Path

Named NPCs:

• Calcand the Gravedigger

• Hratak the Beast

• Nicassah, Mighty Lord of the Feast (the cult reports to him)

• Enri-mun the Bound

Members: 15 (5 humans, 2 kaganti, 7 veytikka, 1 hobgoblin)

Products: Transformations

Revelations

Espionage

Carrion

Holding: Small, Level 0 (automatically increases to 1 if a PC takes control)

Common Assets: Keeps a low profile

Rare Assets: Access to the Outer Chancel of the Dark

Unique Assets:

Common Drawbacks: Lack of leadership

Rare Drawbacks: Bound to Nicassah

Unique Drawbacks:

Arashnai House, in the Pyraculum of the City of Brass

Named NPCs:

• Dallo

• Wenden

• Shard

Residents: 3 (azer)

Products: Finished metal goods (weapons, armor, tools)

Holding: Small, Level 1

Common Assets: Excellent workshop

Rare Assets: Access to the City of Brass's markets

Unique Assets:

Common Drawbacks: Difficult/expensive to expand or upgrade - it's functionally a townhouse with a basement

Rare Drawbacks: Planar access is inconvenient

Unique Drawbacks:

Ileskku’s Grove

Named NPCs:

• Lekka

• Alquin, former servant of the Night Collector

• (Goblin-fey)

Residents: 10 (satyr, goblin-fey, poison-fey, sprites) + additional unknown residents

Products: Nuts, berries (some enchanted)

Flowers

Wood (primarily oak)

Holding: Small, level 1

Common Assets: Inaccessible without Ileskku's permission

Rare Assets: Free passage between the Guildhall and the Hidden World

Unique Assets: Mist-maze

Common Drawbacks: Inaccessible without Ileskku's permission

Rare Drawbacks: Unexplored areas, potentially unsafe

Unique Drawbacks:

Las Estrellas Amatista, an Abandoned (?) Casino in the High Ward

Named NPCs: Unknown

Employees: None? (minimum 8 needed)

Products: Money

Espionage

Debts owed to the owner

Holding: Small, level 0 (increases to 1 when explored and staffed)

Common Assets: Upscale location

Rare Assets:

Unique Assets:

Common Drawbacks: Unexplored

Rare Drawbacks:

Unique Drawbacks:

Mechanics

So what does all of this mean? I’m trying to keep the system strongly narrative-forward, while still costing and granting resources. Let me go ahead and warn you that I won’t be solving all of my problems within this post; it’s a work in progress and some things I’ll figure out in the course of play.

The essential piece is that holdings have sizes and levels, and these determine income rolls. The Products list is a key part of what that income looks like – so for instance, the Sorrow-Born Path doesn’t pay its leader in cash. What it gives you can be converted into cash, instead.

Holdings make progress toward gaining levels when their Assets and Drawbacks feature in the story (it’s important to me that having Drawbacks is good, even if the Drawback itself is also a problem), when you Create an Asset, when you Resolve a Drawback, and when you invest cash or other resources in upgrading your holding. For example, Lanth is spending 5,000 silver to build a barracks and training yard for the Sapphire Banner, and the estate has been the center of several adventures. That moves the holding toward level 2.

Holding Progression

Creating a level 1 holding from nothing costs money based on the tables in DMG Chapter 6. Some kinds of holdings can only be created through adventuring, or received as rewards (DMG Chapter 7: Marks of Prestige). Larger holdings make a lot more money, so they’re more costly to advance. The amount of progress you gain from Assets and Drawbacks is still completely up in the air.

Monthly Income

(Please understand these dice expressions as placeholders. I need more brains working on this than my own to figure out if these are good, bad, or ugly.) At the end of each game month, a holding makes an income roll. That income is expressed in sp (Aurikesh uses a silver baseline rather than gold, so other campaigns should treat these numbers as gp), but consider whether it makes sense for that holding to produce coin, or to save up that value to yield in some other format. Magical holdings should look to DMG Chapter 7: Supernatural Gifts.

Start with a d6 roll, modified by circumstances in the story. If things are going well for the holding, gain a +1 to +2. If things are going poorly, gain a -1 to -2. On a result of 2 or less, use the Poor dice value. On a result of 3 or 4, use the Average dice value, On a result of 5 or more, use the Prosperous dice value. With three consecutive Poor rolls, you also create a new Common Drawback: Fallen on hard times, which also imposes a -1 to this d6 roll.

The rates for converting this coinage into things other than common gear or magic items is TBD, but I’d expect boons, political favors, secrets, and so on to be priced like consumable magic items, with a broadly similar conception of “rarity.” They may or may not be transferable.

Holding Actions

At the start of each month, you can declare an action for your holding.

Build: This action covers things that create something new that isn’t a standard product, but doesn’t make sense as an Asset or resolving a Drawback. It’s covering a lot of indistinct ground, basically. Building costs money or other resources, and draws on the labor pool of your holding’s Residents or Members.

Create Asset: This action covers developing a new Asset, adding a new form of product to the holding’s options, and changing an Asset’s rarity. Changing rarity generally requires rewriting it to be something appropriate to its new rarity. Creating an Asset probably costs money or other resources, and may require some amount of adventuring. It may draw on the labor pool of your holding’s Residents or Members.

Resolve Drawback: This action covers removing a Drawback or changing your Drawback’s rarity. Changing rarity generally requires rewriting it to be something appropriate to its new rarity. Resolving a Drawback probably costs money or other resources, and may require some amount of adventuring. It may draw on the labor pool of your holding’s Residents or Members.

Complications

The Birthright boxed set has a random events table that I really like for pushing some complications into the lives of regents, so I’m going to adapt it to holdings. The table below resembles it, with changes to suit monthly rather than quarterly event rolls.

At the start of each month, roll 2d10. If you roll an event (anything other than No Event), you skip the next two months of rolls. The DM is free to replace the die result with any event closer to the 8-13 No Event band than your roll. An event that isn’t addressed within a month imposes a -1 penalty to your holding’s fortune roll.

So that is a lot of stuff. I would appreciate feedback. I’m not sure what, if anything, should happen for players to have multiple holdings, or if that kind of thing is even a problem.