# D&D General Follow on from the last thread about a roll that resulted in The Earls Vassals refusing to let his daughter marry his liege's son



## JMISBEST

A follow on to the last thread

Rolls on a related table show that 1 of The 6 Barons that A Vassal to The Earl decided to refuse to let his daughter marry his Liege's son and heir and instead upheld the marriage to the son on 1 of his Liege's other Vassals

Idiot. I mean he may not like his liege he was foolish enough to let his hate for his liege override the fact that within 2 generations(his daughters generations and his daughters children generation), his family wouldn't be A Vassals to The Earl or Earless that rules the area, rather the head of the family would be The Earl or Earless that rules the area

Other rolls showed that his dislike was sort of justified due to the fact that 17 years ago his entire family has been executed for treason, but he was spared because he was able to prove his innocence

The reason he hates his liege is because his youngest sister was the only other innocent member of a family that had 22 members yet she was executed because even though she was also innocent unlike him she couldn't prove it


----------



## ilgatto

JMISBEST said:


> A follow on to the last thread
> 
> Rolls on a related table show that 1 of The 6 Barons that A Vassal to The Earl decided to refuse to let his daughter marry his Liege's son and heir and instead upheld the marriage to the son on 1 of his Liege's other Vassals
> 
> Idiot. I mean he may not like his liege he was foolish enough to let his hate for his liege override the fact that within 2 generations(his daughters generations and his daughters children generation), his family wouldn't be A Vassals to The Earl or Earless that rules the area, rather the head of the family would be The Earl or Earless that rules the area
> 
> Other rolls showed that his dislike was sort of justified due to the fact that 17 years ago his entire family has been executed for treason, but he was spared because he was able to prove his innocence
> 
> The reason he hates his liege is because his youngest sister was the only other innocent member of a family that had 22 members yet she was executed because even though she was also innocent unlike him she couldn't prove it



You may want to consider changing "Earless" to "Countess". Leaving it as is may lead to some confusion in people reading your post.


----------



## JMISBEST

ilgatto said:


> You may want to consider changing "Earless" to "Countess". Leaving it as is may lead to some confusion in people reading your post.



Theirs no need to change it, A Earl and A Earless are 99.9% identical, the only difference is that actual name of the title depends on the title holders gender

As a example in the case of the ruler of A Earldom if the title holders male their title is Earl and if the title holder is female their title is Earless


----------



## ilgatto

JMISBEST said:


> Theirs no need to change it, A Earl and A Earless are 99.9% identical, the only difference is that actual name of the title depends on the title holders gender
> 
> As a example in the case of the ruler of A Earldom if the title holders male their title is Earl and if the title holder is female their title is Earless



Fascinating.


----------



## cbwjm

Gonna starting calling all female earls Van Gogh.


----------



## Nikosandros

cbwjm said:


> Gonna starting calling all female earls Van Gogh.



That's a deep cut


----------



## Omand

JMISBEST said:


> Theirs no need to change it, A Earl and A Earless are 99.9% identical, the only difference is that actual name of the title depends on the title holders gender
> 
> As a example in the case of the ruler of A Earldom if the title holders male their title is Earl and if the title holder is female their title is Earless



Sorry, my last engagement here and then I am out.

You have told me before that you are English @JMISBEST, so I am calling you on it.  Look up your own national history, a female earl is not an earless.  She is a Countess.  Earl evolved from the old Anglo-Saxon usage, but after 1066 and the Norman Conquest the terms of nobility were lined up with continental practice.  Earl and Count are equavelent ranks if you look up English vs. French or German practice.

Earl was retained as a title in England, due to being embedded in the culture, but Countess was the title to be given to an Earl's wife.  Equally, it would be given to females appointed to what would normally be an earldom (except that never happened until modern times due to sexism in the system).

Cheers


----------



## GuyBoy

@Omand is totally correct.
By all means, have the title "Earless" in your campaign if you want, but it was never in use in medieval England. Earl was an Anglo-Saxon title, deriving from the Norse word "Jarl" and usually spelt "Eorl" until 1066.
The Norman equivalent was "Comte", which gave rise to Count and Countess. Count never really caught on in English parlance, partly because of its Norman origin (and possibly partly because of its resemblance to an Anglo-Saxon word for part of the female anatomy!), so countess became the female version of earl.
It's a long time since I used Anglo-Saxon English at university, but I suspect a female word for earl (if it ever existed, which it didn't) would have been "earlen" or "earlge"

Anyway, good luck marrying the earl's daughter.


----------



## haakon1

GuyBoy said:


> The Norman equivalent was "Comte", which gave rise to Count and Countess. Count never really caught on in English parlance



True, but I assume “County” has something to do with counts, and that sure proved widespread and durable in both the UK and US.  I assume the Sheriff of a County is from Shire-Reeve.

But I never studied Old English.  Perhaps my guesses at derivation are wrong.


----------



## GuyBoy

haakon1 said:


> True, but I assume “County” has something to do with counts, and that sure proved widespread and durable in both the UK and US.  I assume the Sheriff of a County is from Shire-Reeve.
> 
> But I never studied Old English.  Perhaps my guesses at derivation are wrong.



To the best of my knowledge (which might well be wrong), the Normans introduced the word “county” as an administration tool after 1066, though these new counties were actually the same as the old Saxon shires in terms of geography. 
Sheriff was, as you say, from shire-reeve. 
The use of counties as local admin districts made it across the Atlantic, as did sheriffs. 

PS I’m far from an expert in Old English. I never studied it distinctly, but my degree dissertation was on Earl Godwin of Wessex, so I picked up enough to access older documents for research.


----------



## Immeril

JMISBEST said:


> A follow on to the last thread
> 
> Rolls on a related table show that 1 of The 6 Barons that A Vassal to The Earl decided to refuse to let his daughter marry his Liege's son and heir and instead upheld the marriage to the son on 1 of his Liege's other Vassals
> 
> Idiot. I mean he may not like his liege he was foolish enough to let his hate for his liege override the fact that within 2 generations(his daughters generations and his daughters children generation), his family wouldn't be A Vassals to The Earl or Earless that rules the area, rather the head of the family would be The Earl or Earless that rules the area
> 
> Other rolls showed that his dislike was sort of justified due to the fact that 17 years ago his entire family has been executed for treason, but he was spared because he was able to prove his innocence
> 
> The reason he hates his liege is because his youngest sister was the only other innocent member of a family that had 22 members yet she was executed because even though she was also innocent unlike him she couldn't prove it



As a DM, why don't you simply deviate from your roll if you're not satisfied with the result?


----------



## A2Z

Omand said:


> Sorry, my last engagement here and then I am out.
> 
> You have told me before that you are English @JMISBEST, so I am calling you on it.  Look up your own national history, a female earl is not an earless.  She is a Countess.  Earl evolved from the old Anglo-Saxon usage, but after 1066 and the Norman Conquest the terms of nobility were lined up with continental practice.  Earl and Count are equavelent ranks if you look up English vs. French or German practice.
> 
> Earl was retained as a title in England, due to being embedded in the culture, but Countess was the title to be given to an Earl's wife.  Equally, it would be given to females appointed to what would normally be an earldom (except that never happened until modern times due to sexism in the system).
> 
> Cheers




I would argue in an egalitarian culture, where women can hold titles in the same manner as the men, there would be no reason for gendered titles to develop. An earl is an earl no matter if it's a man or woman.


----------



## Weiley31

What about the Generaless?


----------



## Mirtek

JMISBEST said:


> A Earl and A Earless are 99.9% identical, t



The 1% being the missing ears?


----------



## ilgatto

Mirtek said:


> The 1% being the missing ears?



Must... not... laugh... 
Must... not... 
Dammit


----------

