Teaser for Castle Builder Vol. 2.

 
Now that Volume 2 has been released, I thought I'd share some supplemental material to whet your appetite and give you some insight into how I viewed the subject of manor houses.  Below is the resulting teaser. 
 
 
Buildings are expensive.  They are also time consuming.  Over the course of writing this installment, it became clear just how much of an investment even a stronghold of moderate means is.  The manor house is nothing to sneeze at despite being the most common building type characters encounter.  It is not just the common inn, tavern, or estate.  This class includes practically every large-scale nonmilitary building in the fantasy genre.
 
The warehouse district of any large town: manor house-sized storage and utility spaces.  Apartment complexes or family-owned businesses such as a dry goods store, tailor’s shop, and so forth are also manor houses in a technical sense.  This is because they are all sufficiently large structures that share the same wall thickness and sturdiness as the manor owned by a town’s mayor or city-dwelling aristocrats.  None of the people who would own such a building would consider their property as either just a status symbol or a casual expenditure.  Why should player characters think otherwise?  The pricing of the buildings at the end of this volume demonstrates just how long and how much goes into a stronghold and why despite being numbers, lines, and words on paper, players and gamemasters alike should think about the investment a stronghold represents as something with significant meaning for anyone willing to have one built.
 
Like a business, a manor house requires its owner to invest time into it.  This is not just in reference to the upkeep costs to prevent the structure from falling into disrepair, but also those intangible aspects that define the building as a home, a place of business, a hideout, or any combination therein.  It is the unseen and unaccountable elements that define the true reasons why someone would want to own a manor house.  The two example structures in this volume are designed to show how the reasons go a long way in developing not just the personality of the stronghold, but how important the manor houses are to their respective owners.
 
The Hart and Vine was created as an upscale version of the run-of-the mill inn.  Rather than rehashing Ye Olde Typical Tavern, this establishment takes advantage of the entrepreneurial spirit found in fantasy literature and films and gives it a twist and the potential to be either a light-hearted setting or as a potentially dark and sinister entity biding its time before striking against the neighboring keep.
 
In the opposite direction is the Estate of Ellingsworth.  The size of the building stretches the credibility of the fantasy genre and verges on the farcical.  Some might consider the structure to be their dream house for their characters.  For others, it is as anachronistic with its Colonial/Victorian inspiration as it is humorous.  Given its prodigious size, it is little wonder that anyone would either want to own it or scoff at it.  But the estate has multiple purposes in comparison with the inn.  So, while it is a fantasy house for the fantasy genre, it is multiple things to multiple people whereas the Hart and Vine is a business – albeit one where the owner lives on the premises.
 
In either case, what should stand out is that in the case of the characters in the setting, there are several investments involved: monetary, societal image, and personal comfort.  This is of greater importance as of all the strongholds available, this is the most mutable and customizable.