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Ruling a Feudal Society

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 152
The primary responsibility of a feudal lord is protection for his or her vassals. This protection is both physical and legal, including aid if a vassal comes under attack as well as swift justice under the law. Though more advanced kingdoms tend to rely on precedent and established common law, kings and queens can override these at will. Their word literally is the law, often bolstered by a supposed divine mandate (and their allies within the church).

Protection comes in many forms. The very purpose of the kingdom is to stand united against enemy invasion, and this is the reason the vassals have sworn to provide warriors and service to the king. Yet the king must also protect the kingdom against internal threats, such as rebellions, bandits, thieves and murderers, mercantile fraud, and dissident or ambitious nobles. Much of the time, this means passing responsibility to the local lords and trusting them to do their work; and in most cases the vassals have extraordinary latitude to interpret the king’s wishes, and direct appeal to the ruler is rare and discouraged by his underlings. Feudal justice at the uppermost levels tends to be pragmatic, rather than idealistic, meaning that any disputes are settled according to which party is of most use to the king himself. Occasionally, as in the case of the Holy Roman Emperor, a monarch may be selected by a group of peers rather than inherited through his bloodline, in which case he’s both absolute ruler and beholden to his underlings, a fact reflected in his rulings. In a feudal society, justice is far from blind.

Archives of Nethys

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Ruling a Feudal Society