I've never seen use of the word "sheriff" in this context for
Traveller. Search for the word seneschal. In theory this is someone
who runs the household while the noble is away. The implication in
some of the writing is they manage all types of the problems.

In the Imperium at least the Duke doesn't take an oath of fealty from
the knights (or other lesser nobility). All the nobility fealty is to
the Emperor directly (in theory). So the duke needs to trust the
Knight running the small world in his County or risk insulting the
Emperor.

On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 3:30 AM kaladorn at gmail.com (via tml list)
<xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
> I'm with Timothy. If you've looked at English, Scottish or European nobilities and their paths from the least to the top (in terms of liege-lord relationships go), you find may paths. And they aren't consistent over time and they aren't consistent by location (entirely anyway). It's a soup. So to try to do this sanely and with some fidelity, you'd need to look at each case. Automating could help you move ahead, but you'd have to at least revisit and adjust to match canon.
>
> That's no solace to your goal, I accept.
>
> This has left me with a related question:
>
> Does the 3I have sheriffs? (I mean the people that collect and manage fiefs as directly held by the noble (not via a chain of ever smaller nobles)
>
> Does the Duchy of Wherever have about 20-40% of his net holdings directly held where sheriffs would handle gathering taxes and managing the fief land for a set payment rather than having it occupied by Knight. The historical reason for this is that direct taxation of a fief by the higher noble gets a better (larger) percentage because there are no middle men really (nobles anyway). It also means that the Duke could be handing out some jobs for people to run those fiefs as a perk (not as good as a hereditary knight, but still a good living in some areas). It also means the Duke has a stronger position vs. any revolt from his under-nobles because them not paying up won't be the end for the Duke.
>
> Does anything like that in the 3I?
>
> Maybe it is a simple 'yes, and it pretty much works like that too' or 'nothing written' or 'time for a new TML posting as it is complicated'.
>
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2024 at 3:53 PM Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> really will try and dig out my SSS2 and CoC (Counties of Core not Call of Cthulhu) material tomorrow now I've finished PCC duties (till Minute taking on Thursday evening).  I've not written the 1000s of words I'd hoped on the adventure, but at least I feel I've made a start and have things buzzing round in my head which always helps.  Not entirely sure it will be of much help TBH, but it might inspire something.
>>
>> Reading Jim K's comment makes me recall that I'm pretty sure I decided on the Counties by astrography as he suggests and did NOT come up with a way of auto-generating them.  When I find the map, I may recall more of how I went about it.
>>
>> The biggest challenge was the maps as I had to take a big enough portion of Traveller Map into an art programme (Brushes IIRC on an iPad when I had one) and then delete the surrounding material I didn't want to just leave the hexes of the County.  This was pretty tedious for ~95 counties.  I think I emailed Joshua about adding a feature where you could click on a (small) group of worlds to get the kind of map I wanted (NOT a Jump map for a particular world) but I imagine it's on a long to do list.  Or does anyone know a way of doing that from TravellerMap as is?
>>
>> I like your analysis of Aramis, partly because that kind of "not a lot of sense" feels very real and probably what English counties had/have and partly because the only campaign run I've run spent all of its six years and 40 sessions entirely in that one subsector.  Indeed, my very opening scene was the Marquis doing a New Year/Holiday speech from his balcony in Leedor.  We also had a lot of fun with the Baron's family when the PCs were pretending to be servants in the Tukera mansion on Lewis.  I probably ought to write *those* notes up too - I had a family tree if that helps although it wasn't very extensive - it just covered what/who the PCs might encounter around the house.  But I can well imagine some really complex set up like the Aramis Trace having worlds in a County in the Spinward Marches and other worlds in a County in Deneb.  OR the Aramis Trace being part of a County in the Spinward Marches as some kind of notional 'award' but actually administered from Pretoria as you say... OR... several other possibilities.  I feel like English nobility would exactly have that kind of 'makes no sense' so why not the Third Imperium?
>>
>> tc
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 20 Sept 2024 at 05:38, David Johnson - piperfan at zarthani.net (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Jim.
>>>
>>> It can be difficult to generalize about Counties just due to how worlds and the map get generated.  My general approach is "bigger than Marks, smaller than Duchies" and let astrography determine the specifics. Being too procedural about it can get weird results, and not good weird.
>>>
>>>
>>> I think that's a good approach but sometimes those Duchies and the astrography make it difficult to make sense of things.
>>>
>>> Consider Aramis. There is no subsector duke. GURPS Nobles tells us that portions of the subsector are "administered" by the neighbouring Duchies of Rhylanor, Regina and Pretoria in Deneb Sector. According to Nobles, the four worlds of the Aramis Trace in the Aramis subsector, including Aramis, are administered by Rhylanor. (The Traveller Adventure tells us that the Marquis of Aramis "owes allegiance" to the Count of Celepina in Rhylanor.) Nobles also tells us that the Towers Cluster in Aramis is administered by Pretoria but only that "parts of" Aramis are administered by Regina.
>>>
>>> It seems reasonable to assume that those "parts of" Aramis administered by Regina include, at a minimum, the worlds of Paya and Dhian on the Spinward Main running into Regina subsector. (The wiki entry for the Duchy of Regina says these worlds are part of the County of Rethe, the only worlds in Aramis mentioned in the entry.) Perhaps the Regina-administered "parts" also include the five worlds of the "Scatters" -- Focaline, Heguz, Violante, Zila and Pysadi -- which can all be reached by jump-2 from Paya (though Pysadi is also jump-2 from Aramis and both Heguz and Zila are jump-2 from Pretoria's Towers Cluster). Regina also likely administers Corfu and Lablon in the core-spinward corner of Aramis, which are only jump-2 from Heya in Regina but are Jump-3 from Jesedipere in the Towers Cluster (though Lablon is technically part of the Towers Cluster but separated from the other Imperial worlds by three Cluster worlds in the Vargr Extents).
>>>
>>> That leaves two worlds, Lewis and Patinir, along the trailing edge of Aramis, on a jump-1 trace which runs on along the rimward portion of Pretoria. (John Wood, writing in JTAS Online in 2005, called this the "L'sis Main" -- for the only world with a class A starport on the Pretoria portion of the trace -- but nevertheless suggested that Lewis and Patinir were administered from Rhylanor.) The Traveller Adventure tells us that the Barony of Lewis is held by the Tukera clan, now connected by marriage to the Marquisate of Aramis.
>>>
>>> So what does that tell us about Counties in Aramis?
>>>
>>> The wiki entry for Aramis subsector says that the Towers Cluster is administered by the Duchy of Pretoria, the Aramis Trace by the Duchy of Rhylanor and the Scatters by the Duchy of Regina.
>>>
>>> Is there a "County of the Towers Cluster"? The wiki entry for the Duchy of Pretoria doesn't say.
>>>
>>> If the Marquis of Aramis is a vassal of the Count of Celepina in Rhylanor it seems reasonable to assume that Aramis (as the wiki entry for the Duchy of Rhylanor indicates) and likely the other worlds of the Aramis Trace, and perhaps also Lewis and Patinir, are part of the County. (On the other hand, the wiki entry on the Aramis Trace says that "administration of the Trace worlds is handled through Pretoria, typically by Count Urnas." Urnas also lies on the L'sis Main in Pretoria. This information is repeated in the wiki entry for the Duchy of Pretoria. Because it contradicts Nobles, I assume this wiki information is mistaken.) So, County of Celepina it is for the Rhylanor-administered worlds in Aramis -- maybe.
>>>
>>> Is there a "County of the Scatters"? The wiki entry for the Duchy of Regina doesn't say. Perhaps, along with Paya and Dhian, the other Regina-administered worlds in Aramis are part of the County of Rethe.
>>>
>>> All of this assumes that every world with a baron (or a marquis) is part of county. Perhaps each of the Barons of the worlds of the Towers Cluster have a direct relationship with the Duke of Pretoria and each of the Barons of the worlds of the Aramis Scatters have a direct relationship with the Duke of Regina. Maybe each of the Barons of the Aramis Trace, with the exception of Aramis itself, have a direct relationship with the Duke of Rhylanor.
>>>
>>> In other words, not a lot of sense there (and some indication that different observers draw different conclusions from the same ducal and astrographic circumstances).
>>>
>>> More frustratingly, little or no guidance either about how counties might generally be organized elsewhere!
>>>
>>> Happy Travelling,
>>>
>>> David
>>> --
>>> "I was trying to show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, and the partition of the Middle East into a loose collection of Arab states, and the passing of British and other European spheres of influence following the Second." - Edward Chalmers (H. Beam Piper), "The Edge of the Knife"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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--
Thomas Jones-Low
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