Feudal/Serf RP?

Argent Dawn
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Hi there,

I was curious to know if there is any type of guild around that revolves around a sort of medieval theme where common folk serve a lord. Perhaps where there is this dynamic between nobles/knights and peasants.

I have come across many “lords” and house guilds but find that they don’t actually RP the life on their castles and lands. They just stand around in Cathedral square all day recruiting, having small talk and gossip. I believe they get their pleasure out of engaging in this substanceless Game of Thrones-esque political RP with other house guilds. Often the guildmembers are just lackeys, expected to follow the leader around. This is absolutely not what I am looking for.

I am looking for realistic feudal RP. Where I serve a lord, fight for him in poor armour in times of war and cultivate for him in times of peace. I don’t mind if it is eventbased. Is there a guild like this or that can offer an expierence similar around at all?

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Because anyone rarely roleplays that out simply due to that being quite headcanon to slap a castle to your own character. WoW human lore isn’t that rich to promote various lands to enjoy from a RP perspective.

But good luck with your search.

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Like the good mage said, nobility does not roleplay on land simply because there isn’t land. With that said, I would love to see a noble/house guild that goes out and roleplays like that within a zone or a city.

Imagine a great armada of soldiers surrounding a prissy couple in a carriage going around Stormwind City for a a flauneristic stroll.

… and promptly getting tomato pelted by outraged peasants.

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Human kingdoms of azeroth are monarchical, not feudal.
You have nobles, but the king rules, the most closest thing for you would be peasants led by a mayor of a small township, equally poorly equipped but remain comited to gathering of resources and their men being drafted if the need arises.

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The regions of Stormwind appear to be managed by primarily by bureaucrats rather than the aristocracy. Magistrates, mayors, and so on.

The Kingdom of Stormwind is not feudal. Although its nobility does possess a certain amount of power, Blizzard have largely minimised that because it’s not really part of the narrative they want to tell.

That being said, I can imagine an aristocrat or otherwise wealthy individual would maintain an armed retinue, provided they can afford to do so (hence the mention of wealth and not just social standing), but not in the traditional medieval sense.

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There is no such thing in Stormwind and it seems that Kul Tiras is similar, but instead of one big house that controls the entire kingdom, you have three, each of them controlling one part of it. Everyone else is basically just a rich landholder (Norwington, Ashvane, nobles in Stormwind). Still influential, don´t get me wrong, but influential in the same sense as rich people are in modern society.

Those nobles recruiting followers into their personal retinue in Cathedral Square (and paying them for their services) make much more sense in the setting than noble living in a castle and ordering bunch of peasants to fight for him in a war (and even if peasants are drafted into the war, they are provided with full armor…plate in case of Stormwind).

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I don’t think Humans in Warcraft are exactly ran in a Feudalistic fashion, Stormwind is an Absolute Monarchy, this is true, but beneath that things are a bit more fluid, you have the regional capitals of areas ran by mayors and magistrates, neither of which can hold Vassals, which is a key element of Feudalism, nor can they hold a Fief, which is another. I mean sure, the wealthy or titled would have some power, but its not like anyone owns any land in the Kingdom of Stormwind, bar one man. Anduin Wrynn. -Nobody- else owns land. I am aware this may cause distress to people in Duskwood, but it simply is the case. People may oversee it, but they’re not even Vassals to Anduin in the classical sense, because in the main they hold titles that they are -elected- to. A Mayor is elected, a Magistrate is appointed, these are not hereditary or even necessarily life long positions.

The Kingdom of Stormwind, or Kingdom of Azeroth if you rather, is a rather bizarre blend of an Absolute Monarchy and a Constitutional Monarchy.

Now that doesn’t stop an individual nobleman/woman from having a retinue, or a warband, retainers to their service. It does however mean that they own diddly squat in terms of land. The King owns it. All of it. You might live there, but at his sufferance.

Same is true of Quel’thalas. Lor’themar Theron owns all of it, every last inch, doesn’t matter how noble your character is, you do not own so much as a scrap of land. Lor’themar is a (mostly) Benevolent Autocrat. If you are given stewardship of an area of land, that does not entitle you to restrict people’s passage, unless it is an active military facility, in which case take it to a raid so that you -can- restrict who comes in.

Equally Durotar, No one owns Grommash Hold, no One Owns Razor Hill, or the Barracks, or the Valley of Spirits, no one apart from the current Warchief. No one has ‘word from Sylvanas’ allowing them to do so.

I don’t actually think there -is- any player character Feudal society in the game…

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Wrong. It has been stated by Dave Kosak that power of nobles comes from two things:

  1. Being advisors to the king.
  2. Holding most of the land.
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A year or so ago, and you’d have House guilds positively creaming :eggplant: themselves at the notion of another number to add to their roster. I don’t think many really do that in WoW now though.

Sadly, it doesn’t really fit with WoW’s fantasy imho. Power to you if you can find somewhere or someone who can provide this kinda roleplay for you though. :+1:

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You should go to Pandaria.

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Something of a tangent, but an idea I find to be (potentially) very cool is a wealthy merchant/aristocrat hiring adventurers, rather than men-at-arms.

Managing to bribe and/or hire a veteran adventurer would presumably be far more prestigious than a handful of standard swordsmen, and much more formidable in practice.

We are generally lead to believe that Azeroth is full of skilled individuals, helping deal with threats that the local military are not able to reach or spare manpower for.

Perhaps a nobleman who wants to see and explore the world but does not have the personal ability to defend himself from the myriad threats that inhabit it offers a substantial sum for a party to travel with him.

Now there’s the kind of service I’m into.

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Something of a tangent, but an idea I find to be (potentially) very cool is a wealthy merchant/aristocrat hiring adventurers , rather than men-at-arms.

That is a cool idea! I always like thinking about how the presence of a bunch of powerful, semi-psychotic adventurers with questionable ties to society might affect the social order…

People definitely own land in Stormwind. There are several farmsteads in Elwynn and Westfall that appear to be owned by families (perhaps wealthy peasants or yeomen), people have houses and shops in Stormwind. I think it’s pretty reasonable to speculate Stormwind nobles might have an estate in the country somewhere, and a town house in the capital, to be close to the Keep.

As to whether Stormwind is feudal, I don’t think Blizz has put that much thought into socio-economic structures, but it could be something like Early Modern Western Europe, where you have an absolute monarchy that still needs to keep a titled noble class on side if it wants the kingdom to run smoothly. Nobles and peasants? Definitely. Feudal serfs bound to the land/lord? There’s not much sign of it - homesteads seem to be the norm, at least in some parts. That’s my read on it, anyway.

Personally I say why be a noble at all if you don’t like small talk, gossip, or substanceless politics, but each to their own!

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That’s not Feudalism. That’s still operating under a Monarchy. In the UK Prince Charles is the Prince of Wales. Does he ‘own’ Wales? No, the Queen does. Does he decide how Wales is actually run? No, the democratically elected Plaidd Cymru do. (Apologies to any Welsh forumgoers, I’m trying to prove a point, not denigrate Welsh Nationality) It’s a title, nothing more. Does he advise the Queen? Probably, I’d imagine, I mean she is his mother, I just had to advise my mother on something so it doesn’t seem that far fetched. As far as I recall, we -never- see a human Noble who runs an area in Azeroth, Lady Admiral doesn’t count, that is the title for the monarch of Kul Tiras.

The Power of the nobles was broken. Lets face it, Kosak has been wrong before, They exist, sure! But they are not some sort of ‘Small Council’ a’la Game of Thrones. Those days are long gone. Anduin takes advice from people who are competent now, not from people who were lucky by an accident of birth.

The Human Kingdom is most definitely -not- a Feudal Society.

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Pretty much my thoughts, too. The nobility can be powerful and influential without a system of feudalism in place. The bureaucracy and the nobility appear to have some overlap too if we consider a character like Lord Ello Ebonlocke, the mayor of Darkshire.

Plaid Cymru are a political party in Wales, but they are not the majority. Labour are the majority party in the Welsh Assembly.

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That was my concept for my Nightborne. An upper class elf with an interest in herbalism who hires an adventurer as escort while exploring the brand new world to study and document its flora.

Never got around to doing it though due to a lack of partner willing to contribute to the party of two.

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I never talked about feudal society. But there is absolutely no mention in the lore that Anduin is owner of all the land. Rather, the only source we have about land ownership in Kingdom of Stormwind is that nobles are the most prominent landholders.

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I genuinely want some of whatever Brigante smokes.

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Vote Plaid btw. Independent Wales today :fist:

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The largest county in england…

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Angry Welsh screeching