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Land Disputes

Posted by Apostate on 05/01/20
Q: When it comes to contentious areas largely inhabited by Abandoned, such as the Shadowood and similar areas, who actually 'owns' the land? If House A claims they own the land, and forays into it require their permission, and House B believes the land isn't owned by anyone at all, or is perhaps even owned by House B, how is this handled? Especially in cases where one could say neither realistically controls the land, due to the numerous hostile Abandoned that reside within?

Likewise, how does land ownership work with vassals and lieges? If House C is a March, House D a County within that March, and then House E is another County within that same March, could one also construe that House D's and E's holdings are technically parts of House C's holdings as well?

What would the prevailing opinions of most Compact Houses be for both situations?

A: The Crown owns Arvum, and all land is in the keeping of its vassals as parts of the Compact. That is a simplistic way some commoners say how it works, and it's not entirely wrong, but it misses some nuance.

Before the Reckoning, the five different regions were independent kingdoms, with the Northlands not having a great house and being made up of warring clans, and the Lyceum not existing yet and being warring city-states without a dominant unifying force. Land was largely accepted as being owned by whatever local ruler could defend it, and fealty developed by granting fiefs in permanent custodianship by vassals who could rule their own subjects in turn and support their liege in war. Once a fief is granted, it's seen as granted in perpetuity, and only war or the complete destruction of a house would likely result in its surrender back to the liege.

Domain borders were usually not particularly well defined in early Arvum and have generally not become much better defined now, with typically a house controlling everything to a natural barrier, and it was accepted that land was really only owned as long as it was actively patrolled and defended. Land could be -claimed- based on having owned it firmly before, and then it slipped from control, with the intention of reclaiming it after they had another generation of men and women grow up to be soldiers to make another push at it in a brand new war, but claims are seen as basically the intent to try to reoccupy a region eventually.

So it goes now. The problem with the 3 different collapses of Arvum in the Reckoning, the Elven War, and the Crownbreaker Wars is there are a LOT of claims. A lot. An overwhelming number of Abandoned groups are created by houses that very much believe that an active Compact house is on their land, and asking them to bend the knee is essentially asking them to surrender their claims and attempts at reclaiming their ancestral homeland.

This does mean that conquering lands from Abandoned probably does mean at least one, and likely more, Compact houses have a claim of the land that dates back a few generations. Most would optimistically hope that Player Characters do them a solid and then turn over the now nicely cleared of Abandoned lands over to them. That is unlikely to happen, but could mean in a generation or two, if the PC domain is looking weak, they might find a pre-text for war to try to reclaim what they see as rightfully theirs. In the short term, generally higher social ranks do not interfere in lower territorial squabbles, but this can be where marriage alliances are rather important. It wouldn't be uncommon for a barony trying to expand at the expense of Abandoned clans then is pointedly asked to surrender the lands to a neighboring barony that just happens to have a family member married to their ducal house, and would be happy to back their claim militarily.