*waits for the Time bar*

[benkern]

Da da da dum, da da da da-da-da dum, da dum...

-> Benkern
-> Magic
-> Bolt3 (all)

Shhhhhhhhoooooooowshhhhhhhhh...
Bolt3!
*crappy lightning sound effect*

Come on. We need some Yardistani projects going on. We're being thrashed in terms of activity and participation by the other Duchies. Wheres the YAC spirit?! Let's move!

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

The Yardistani spirit, eh? I've heard much about that in my travels through the county fora... are you a Yardistani count, Benkern/Sfeir?

[Ari Rahikkala]

He is, in fact, a Yardistani Baron... although without any Counties and, therefore, without any actual land to rule over. You really need to take that up with Jacobus, you know .

[Yvain Wintersong]

The Yardistani spirit, eh? I've heard much about that in my travels through the county fora

Its reputation doesn't nearly do it justice. The Yardistani spirit is a cocktail of distilled passionfruit and mangoes, mixed with a bit of tequila and the sap of a bright blue hallucinogenic flower that grows only in Yardistan, and then flavored with good ole' wood alcohol. I had some back in my young and wild days. I woke up three days later at a train station eighty kilometers away, wearing only a silk kimono and a bowler hat and carrying a note in my own handwriting reading "Pythagoras is back". And I was one of the lucky ones.

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

So, in smiley-talk, a devilish concoction of
Or something along those badly drawn and vague lines?

It'd benefit me greatly if I knew who exactly ruled each county- I mean, Shireroth must have at least thirty of them, meaning that some citizens must have two or three counties each.
I assume, for example, that this is Yvain's county... am I right?

[Ari Rahikkala]

* counts the Counties *

According to a quick count, we've got 44 Counties, and 7 Counts. Those Counties that do not have a Count just... well, don't have one.

You seem to be a bit confused... and I think I'm starting to see that the Guide for the Perplexed doesn't really explain this all that well. Well, here's a really quick rundown on Shirithian feudalism for now, we'll fix the guide later:

- the Kaiser's at the top. This part should be fairly easy to understand .
- (currently) all Shirithian land (and a lot of the sea ) is divided into Duchies. Each has a Duke, and it's considered fairly important that each Dukal position be filled by an active citizen.
- technically, the way things currently work (though this part does keep changing), all feudal organisation under the Duchy level is optional. However, the traditional level of feudalism that goes between Duchies and Counties is the Barony. Right now Kildare is the only Duchy that's rigorously divided into Baronies. The other Duchies' Baronies got a bit mixed up in the feudal contracts era...
- after that, there's the level of Counties. Every Duchy except for Straylight is divided into Counties (and I'm going to get into that, too).

Dukes are the only nobles that actually participate in the government and have any responsibilities arising from their position (namely, participating in the Landsraad). The only real difference between being a Count and being a commoner is that Counts get a forum of their own... and since we've got plenty of Counties to spare, pretty much every citizen who wants it gets to be a Count.

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

Thanks
That's sorted stuff out for me- but I still don't understand why someone doesn't just work on dividing all the Duchies up into Baronies, and then Counties. Surely that would help a great deal in standardising the feudal system?
Sooo... judging by the demographics (44 Counties, 7 Counts), I dare say I wouldn't be pushing too much if I asked for another Brookshirean County?
Also, who exactly owns the small group of unnamed islands just South of Modan-Lach?

[benkern]

http://images.shireroth.org/maps/shirer ... 6.2007.PNG

Notice the dotted lines extend from your border into the sea - this denotes waters/island borders of the County too I believe. Thus, they are yours.

[Andreas the Wise]

Thanks
That's sorted stuff out for me- but I still don't understand why someone doesn't just work on dividing all the Duchies up into Baronies, and then Counties. Surely that would help a great deal in standardising the feudal system?
Sooo... judging by the demographics (44 Counties, 7 Counts), I dare say I wouldn't be pushing too much if I asked for another Brookshirean County?
Also, who exactly owns the small group of unnamed islands just South of Modan-Lach?

Well, I divided Kildare into three Baronies, took one, and though I'm officially "count" of Melangia, did some cultural development in the other four, then handed one over to Nick to continue with. I figure Barons have the right to develop their other counties. If you talk to Mors, I think he was gonna put Brookshire into Baronies and offer you and Yvain one each ... or you could do it for him and pick the counties you want (that is, after all, what I did ...)

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

Yeah, why not. But the Baronies here seem to change pretty frequently- that's my problem, and I wouldn't be happy to spend ages being a Baron then have my lands and title taken away from me. Also, do Baronies have flags? I mean, hardly any Baronies seem to have sub-forums, so I'd define them as just a collection of provinces.
I assume all Baronies must consist of counties in the same Duchy, then. In that case, I'd be taking some of the Southern Brookshire counties like Alexandretta, Lywind, Crestfall Downs, Thanatos etc as my Duchy.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Baronies actually used to be quite stable, it was only the period of feudal contracts that messed them up like that... well, actually, they were fine during the contracts period too, they just got all out of sync with Shireroth's geography, so when we went back to the old system (which requires territorial congruity) lots of Baronies got "disconnected" from their Counties.

Also, regarding "your Duchy"... patience, grasshopper, creating new Duchies is for when big things happen... like, when we annex nations or get huge influxes of new citizens (what we have now is merely enough to return us to our former glory )... and the position of Duke is for people with plenty of experience of how things work here. Again, please don't despair about all the strangeness of our feudal system - it took us years to make it this confusing, we're just too used to it to see it as anything but natural...

(in fact, even the creation of baronies currently needs to go through Landsraad... we ignored that with Kildare, but I think I'm going to go back and put a bill before the Landsraad for it anyway, you know, to retroactively approve it. I believe I have some fairly decent reasons for preferring it this way rather than wanting to change the law so Dukes could create Baronies freely... I will describe them tomorrow, as I'm going to sleep right now)

[Andreas the Wise]

My bad ...
Or good, probably ...
Maks, I just worked partly off the old baronies and partly off territorial boundaries to do mine. But I have no idea what the old ones would be in Brookshire, so just get Mors to do it ...

[Jacobus Loki]

benkern is a Baron, as long as he's a Citizen, and Count of Mar Sara.

I reserve the County of Yardistan for Myself.

We Yardistanis like it confusing. It makes it easy to get stuff when no one is looking.

The other Counties are available to Yardistanis who are loyal and willing!

[Jacobus Loki]

BTW, it was an American holiday weekend, and the Turkey is still whereing off.

[Kaiser Mors V]

Brookshire has baronies now too!... I'm the Kaiser.. I can do that without the Landsraad!....I win!