Creating a Medieval Manor: Part I (The Whole Manor)

A wealthy village

A manor is more than a building, it more than a village, it is an entire community. This post is based around an agricultural manor (or fief) which would be the most common type in medieval England.  A fishing village would be very similar except the field shape would be chopped in half to designate the water-line.

To determine the basics of the manor roll 1d12, 1d10, 1d8, and 1d6 and consult the tables.

Peasants doing their thing

Table 1: Who is the Lord

-1d12	Table
01-02	Baron
03-05	Knight
06-10	Bailiff, Lord rarely makes appearances
11	Religious institution
12	Secret Syndicate (roll again for who appears in charge)

Shape of the Fields
An agricultural manor is generally composed of settlements around a field. They have separate strips to grow the Lords crops, and fields for spring, fall, and summer plantings as well as one to lay fallow and reenergize. This is all way more than most GMs need for game purposes so we're lumping all of that into the generic 'fields'.

Table 2: Rough Shape of the Fields

1d10	Table
01-02	Circular
03-04	Oval
05-06	Pear Shaped
07-08	Rectangular
09-10	Separated fields, roll again for each

Fields tend to have roads and trails crossing them and separating them and generally allowing folks to get from one side to the other without crushing the crops. The exterior of the manor is the wastes, that is unexploited land such as heath, forest, swamp, or simply grazing land. This land is unexploited but not unproductive, it is used by the Lord for hunting, for feeding the pigs, reeds in the swamp might be used for thatching.

Number of Settlements
Determine how many settlements surround the fields, and name them. If you don't have names ready to go we suggest d20srd.orgs generator for names.

Slam that mead!

Table 3: Settlements

1d6	Settlements
01-02	1
03-04	2
05	3
06	4

The manor gains one supplemental feature plus an additional one for each settlement. The GM should roll and assign each feature to one of the settlements. Typically a manor will only have one of each feature.

Table 4: Supplemental Features of Manor

1d8	Table
01	Beehives
02	Docks
03-04	Mill/Waterwheel/Windmill
05	Fishpond/Eel pond
06	Market
07	Quarry
08	Mine

The largest settlement should be considered the village and will have a church (or temple). The rest may be villages or thorpe/hamlets depending upon their size. We'll cover that in Part II (Mapping the Settlements).