Guidelines For Roleplay In Caernarfon

About Role Play in Our Homes

Our home is D&D, medieval type fantasy. Caernarfon and Dragonwyck based in a medieval alternate earth setting, with fantasy creatures and magic. Both are very similar to what was found in Lord of the Rings with a touch of Camelot thrown in.

Behavior Fitting the Times

In the medieval times we play in, people believed “every man had his place” and social mobility didn’t happen unless you had an army to back you up. Many men killed to rise to position of being bowed to and they weren't ready to give it up. The reaction of the nobility and common people in “A Knights Tale” to the character attempting to change his station in life depicted it rather well, in outrage and imprisonment. There was a strict social hierarchy. Social reforms and humanism did not run rampant in these times; remember, we're medieval and unenlightened.

Medieval Manners and Expectations or How to Not to Lose Your Head

We do have some protocol in the castles. If you don’t know what to call some of the nobility in the Castle, please private message me and ask. As queen, my character is Your Majesty or M’Queen. Princes and princesses are your Highness, a Duke is Your Grace, and an Empress is Her Imperial Majesty. A merchant might be called, "My Good Man" and a woman could be called, “Good Woman.”

We are not being stuffy, it is the way things are in our home and we’re medieval; these times are very class conscious. Consider this fact carefully when suggesting that everyone about call you by your first name, historically it was considered a serious insult. Those lower in class never considered doing it. So when you play your character to be someone who didn’t believe in using titles, you are bringing modern ideas to roleplay. Please don’t, it doesn’t fit; remember, we're medieval.

Bowing and curtsying happened. When a lady enters a room, a gentleman (a king doesn't have to) rises to his feet and bows. When a lady greets a gentleman in a public setting, she curtsies, unless she is a queen. When someone comes into the presence of the king or queen, especially being presented in Court, dropping to one knee or a curtsy is showing respect.

Save Groveling for 6th Saturday of the Month

This isn't a medievalist version of Gor or BDSM. We have no slaves, subs or doms in our kingdoms. Servants don't grovel about on the floor lying prostrate; curtsying, bowing and dropping to one knee works. There are serfs, but they belong to the land and work it. They don't crawl about either unless they are looking for something they dropped.

Great Halls of Our Castles Are Not For Speed Dating

Now comes for the hard part. Ladies, if you are ladies, act it in the Great Hall; let's act the part of a lady and not the part of a trollop or wench. There is a way to flirt that isn’t an open and obvious invitation for a sexual adventure. This is the time of chivalry and is what writers call, “Romantic Love”. For those females who are of nobility, but have chosen warrior's dress, well, people didn't know quite what to do with Joan of Arc either, men will likely stand, perhaps bow and not really know what to do. Of course the gentleman's dilemma will be solved when the ladies are in more traditional female garb. We have female warriors in our homes.

Privately and at the tavern, it is very different. Yes gentlemen, there was wenching, but not in Great Hall, at least not in my court. It goes without saying that you can role-play your character how you wish, but please stay in theme. It is a good time to remind you, open sexual posting is not allowed in our home. Read our rules if you have more questions regarding this.

Who Lives In Our Castles and Visits Them

Those who worked at the castle had a home in it. This was of course for security purposes; commuting didn’t work then. If you need to travel from your home outside of the castle and there was an attack, you wouldn’t be available for castle defense and your commute could be fatal. Many were needed to keep a castle going, the list is extensive. The lord and lady of the castle lived in it. The family of the lord and lady of the castle, you could have a home in it too, along with extended members of the court, with those attached to these groups.

Regarding who visits castles, those who have business with those who work and live in them. Of course visitors include knights, bards, jugglers, musicians, messengers, scribes, nobility, royalty, close friends or family members of those who live or work in the castle, seeking employment or a boon from someone who has the power to give it. Many more are included, but hopefully you are getting my point, have a reason for your character to be there. Please don’t post you’re “dropping by”.

This is also a reminder, not everyone who comes to the room has a good reason to hang out in the castle. We have towns, villages and forests, so take your pick.

We have multiple pull downs for locations: castle locations, towns, villages, taverns, inns, shops, guildhalls, abbey, forests, rivers, roads encampments and so more. Put your character in the logical place they would be work or play, you have many choices.

Moaning Immediately Following the Groveling

Perhaps some of you are groaning and moaning by now, but we chose to role-play medieval times, so lets make an effort to sound and act that way and not we are all staying at Club Med. Can I say again, we're medieval?

Castles Are Built for Security

The great hall isn't a bar room, thus no bar to lean on. There aren't any windows in the hall at the lower level. The few windows it has are very high on the wall and contain precious glass in to allow light in. If you think about it, having windows in the great hall of the castle that is on ground level would be foolish in an attack; they would just break them and crawl through. Thus defeat the purpose of having those hard to dig moats and expensive armies.

So all you folks who want to press your nose against the glass need to be at 15 feet tall. Any wanting to jump through windows in the hall, need to be really skinny and extremely tall or try pole vaulting to make it up to the skinny window. Of course we can have one of the door porters scrape your remains off the wall if you insist on jumping through hall windows.

In the castle towers there are small, narrow windows. The glass was not very good quality either, so it wasn’t easy to look out. Most would just open the latch on the window to look out. Castle walls are very thick, so windows are deeply set in sometimes with window seats on the sides.

Dinner Is Served

Meals are served in the great halls. You need to bring your own dagger and spoon to use. The dais it there is one in the hall is raised and along the wall, and has a long table in front of the thrones. The hall has tables in it, with benches. There is some seating around the hearth, some benches with backs and a few chairs. There are tapestries on the wall, banners hanging from the rafters, Coats of Arms of all of the Barons' of the kingdom and perhaps some lances or shields on the walls too. This would be normal decorating for the nicer castle halls of our time period.

Castle Gardens

Our garden off the great hall is a very small-enclosed garden. It isn’t open for the villagers; it would have been a protected place for those of the court to step into the “outside safely”. There would have been trees trained to grow flat against the walls of it, to save room. It has, flowers, flowering bushes, fountain, stone walkway and a few stone benches. If you went running through it, be prepared to jump the benches, flowers, and flowering bushes. You had also be ready to corner well, because it isn't that big. The walls are high, so you won't be peeking over them either. The castle enclosed garden offered a secure place to the Ladies of the Court when they used it, since they didn't get out of the castle much.

Castle Bailey/Ward

The bailey or ward is not a formal garden or a courtyard; it is a busy place within the castle. During the daytime, it would have had sparring practice, weapons training, horses coming and going, the castle blacksmith clanging out ironwork in the forges or shoeing horses, cobblers making shoes for those in the castle, armorers making armor or repairing, coopers making casks, hoopers making barrels, billers, making axes, and spencers, spencing. It constantly has people coming and going. If anyone went to sit in it, they would likely been nearly ran over. It would be akin to go sitting in the middle of a busy intersection. Might I also suggest you be careful where you step. The pooper scoopers try to clean up after the horses, but sometimes miss things. Think of it as the noisy, busy crossroads of the castle.

Castle Stable

Our castle stable is rather rough, with workers mucking out stalls, horses being groomed or fed. Soldiers come in to get a mount for patrol. Since our castle is heavily fortified it will be a busy place with constant comings and goings. So mind where you step and suggest you avoid the aromatic piles of stuff with flies on them. The stable workers try to keep things cleaned up, as you know, “it” happens.

Castle Walls

Let’s talk about Castle walls; they are manned at all times, with heavily armed men patrolling. So when you use the castle walls for a walk, it won’t be alone, unless you figure several sentries and archers with you, alone. Someone who is not a member of kingdom would not and should not be there without a member, unless you plan a role-play of an attack. It is an important part of our security. This is the same for any of the castle walks or wall walkways in our homes.

A final word about castlewalks, they are narrow and only have a wall on the outside. From the walkway, the wall rises about 5 feet; otherwise, all walking on the walkway would be an easy target for archers. Remember the dwarf in Lord of the Rings couldn't see over the wall. The drop to the ground in the castle bailey/ward would likely be fatal, unless falling into a cart of hay. Of course the hay might be on fire from flaming arrows if the castle is under attack. So try not fall off.

The walls of the castles and hall are many feet thick (at least 20 feet in some places), which is one of the many reasons why windows aren't practical in many places. The doors are extremely thick and heavy. Many of our walls have passageways in them.

Towns and Villages

The town/village next to the castles has manned walls too, with towers. The times were filled with wars, attacks, raids, robbers, and then since we have added the AD&D mix, we have Orc and all sorts of unfriendly beasties you might find outside our walls. Castles were built as fortresses with moats for very good reasons, for safety. If you role-play picnicking in the forest too, please post NPC guards about.

The towns and villages, which were next to castles and abbey has shops in them. One day a week was called Market Day when they had extended hours, opening up early and closed late. During those times others opened stalls and sold their wares or produce. For those needing or wanting to know of what happened in the towns or castles, I have written a great deal about it and posted it on our message board, in a thread called Medieval Times 101 in the Learning Forums section.

Lions, Orcs and Dragons, Oh My!

Speaking of dragons, unless you are very accustomed to hanging out around dragons, you need show fear, almost speechless terror. Perhaps the same feeling you might have if you opened your back door to let your dog in and there happened to be a T-Rex standing there waiting for you, with fluffy the dog's tail hanging out the corner of his mouth. If you have more questions on this, please post the Lore Assembly forum and ask.

Climate and Terrain

Our weather tends to be damp and chilly from the autumn to late spring. Much like the weather in the northwestern part of the United States. They call it the “great northwet” for a very good reason. It rains, drizzles, sprinkles, spits, pours, storms, mists, etc. It comes in buckets, torrents, gully washers, cats and dogs, squalls, storms, downpours, mists, drops, blinding rain, etc. Folks, it is damp. We will have some snow in the winter at the lower levels and rain otherwise. Our mountaintops are snow capped, and the snow levels become higher as it is later in the spring.

The Snowdonia mountain range just to the south of Caernarfon Castle is the wettest part of Wales with annual precipitation exceeding 3,000 mm. Mount Snowdon in the Snowdonia range is the tallest mountain in Wales and England towering over the countryside at 1085 meters (nearly 3,560 feet). The mountain is an impressive sight in both scenery and proportion and is visible from the Menai Straits. Now for those of you who happen to think this isn’t high at all, you must remember the surrounding area is just a bit higher than sea level.

Wars and Rumors of War

Good time to remind you, that we are somewhat historical and we do role play out war, because the Welsh and the Irish in this time period, were be raided, invaded, hmmm wonder what else rhymes. Well anyway, it was a warlike time in their history. They built castles and fortresses, dug moats or chiseled them from rock for protection.

We are a kill zone, and not the room that has lots of picnics and frolicking in the forests. Oh, I might be wrong on that, don’t Orces just love frolicking? If they don’t, I am sure the English army would be happy to oblige your frolicking. They can fit it in between looting and pillaging.

Cell Phones and Jetting Around

News Flash: we have no medieval cell phones. News travels slowly. Not only news travels slowly, but also so do characters. Unless you have portal abilities in your approved character sheet you can’t go dashing about places, roleplay taking the time.

While we are talking about these things, I’ll remind you; horses don’t have headlights. So if you are planning on running about in the middle of the night, there had better be a full moon out. Some characters do have the ability to see in dark conditions and I certainly do encourage roleplaying it out.

Rules, Reason and Role Play

Know our rules, they might save your character’s life. Also remember, stay alert, someone can config and have full tags in their names in a heart beat. Not everyone is who he or she seems to be. That brings us to another point, security, please be aware of who comes in. If they come in with a weapon not sheathed, we are a KILL ZONE; people, lets post to them accordingly. Do not ignore them. Read their description in the post carefully, they came in to role-play, not be ignored.

Again, of course it bears repeating. Read the full set of rules.

Build Your Character Not Muscles

There are so many things you can do in the kingdoms, find a spot and grow in it. It will give your character something to do. If you are an archer, you ask about having duty on the wall, or be part of escort. You could train others. Role-play a hunt. If you have knowledge of healing, perhaps you can help in the infirmary, make bandages, prepare herbs; always need extra hands. We are a role-play, room, so please find medieval things to do. It makes your character richer and deeper, thus easier to play and play with.

Did You Say Cheerleaders?

Yes, this page sounds harsh, but if we were role-playing being on a pirate ship in the 18th century and you the player insisted on role-playing your character as if you were a cheerleader on the sidelines of a football field during a game. Then of course your character wouldn't be in theme or role-playing with the others in the room. It works the same way when a player tries to bring in modern ideas and ways. And bringing real time and modern ways into role-play work as well as trying to play pirates around those cheering cheerleaders. So lets leave real time and modern things outside role-play, please. Stay in theme, 'cause we're medieval.

Final Admonition

So remember, printing presses haven’t happened yet. Books are scribed by hand and extremely expensive, which bothers few, because most can’t read. We are clueless Japan and China exists. What can I say, we’re 13th century Welsh fantasy kingdoms, consequently it is unlikely we have ninja and samurai warriors running amuck in our halls.

Columbus hasn't sailed anything blue and none of us know there is a South America. Marco Polo hasn't been to China yet. Gunpowder, potatoes, sugar, corn, chocolate, coffee and pasta haven’t made it to our 13th century part of Europe.

The closest we have to tea is a medicinal infusion made from herbs, twigs or moss. My bet is it tasted like moss or twigs in water too. Any other tea had to arrive by land trade routes and was extremely rare and costly.

Our characters aren't into human and animal rights and certainly are not fighting for equal rights for women. We think the world is flat and if you go too far, the monsters will get you or you'll fall off the edge. Our culture believes in killing their problems. On that cheery note, enjoy yourselves. And I sincerely welcome you to our home.

Caera's Player
Founder of Caernarfon
Lore and Council Member
Room Controller of Caernarfon