Noble Houses

>>51164734

Geography. Geography. Geography.

>>51164734
Where their income comes from, and is it liquid or not. In other words, geography.

>>51164768
This. Remember that geography will play a big role in things like borders. A river matters a lot more to a medieval society than a modern one.

>>51164768
>>51164786
>>51164791
Could you elaborate?

>>51164853
Rivers are used for irrigation, sanitation and trade; and form a barrier to armies if it cannot be bridged or forded.

>>51164734
But since the title of the thread is "Noble Houses", I think better insight is in order than "lolrivers".

Strength is achieved by force; and force is achieved by gold. In almost any war, the victor is the one with the larger war coffer.

Castles are expensive to build, but cement control over a region. They are very expensive and time-consuming to siege as well.

Political alliances are solidified through marriage.

All of your children will want a part of the realm, so having too many sons means your lands will become divided. In realms where the eldest inherits everything, palace coups are common, and the younger brothers will form factions with generals and nobles, and try to kill their siblings, so that's not perfect either.

Etc.

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>>51164768
>>51164791
What would you suggest I do when the noble houses in my setting are cosmically ancient families controlling every aspect of human civilization billions of years in the future through an incomprehensible network of proxy companies, governments, armies, terrorist organisations and religious cults while hiding away in artificial miniature universes in order to avoid the absolute and totalitarian might of unknown infinitely powerful eldritch monsters that without any hesitation will completely annihilate any civilization that breaks their cryptic and implied laws?

I mean, there is no geography. They live in arcology-ships floating in nothingness, empty bubbles of spacetime.

>>51164968
proxy wars.

wars are fought for influence over satellites rather than directly

>>51164853

There basically is no history without geography. Borders, cultures, resources, army, even the way of thinking to an extent, it (mostly) comes from that.

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>>51164968
A civilization of this magnitude consumes equally godly levels of resources and energy. Stars are sites with good (for this level) sources of both. Even if you use antimatter as a storage medium or a quantum-vacuum reactor, those demand an infrastraucture measured in solar masses to be produced in the scale you sugest.

So territory and geography still plays a role. Your archailectal nobility are those that have the power to consume suns and produce basement universes and such, and their minor representatives.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/stellarempire.php#id--Other_Thoughts--On_Energy

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/weirdastronomy.php#id--Eldar_Black_Holes

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a3a2d43cf946

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4609cb6a051a4

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/56a75bc63a599

>>51164853
Water is essential for humans and so before modern water transport communities were built along rivers and other water sources. Farms especially are near streams and rivers because irrigation is less developed, Egyptian culture was built around the nile.
For trade, rivers and sea are utilized whenever possible because of the cost of moving goods on land. When designing trade routes consider why people would need to move between two points, that is what goods and trade are making the cost of travel and maintaining trails worth it. Also consider what resource input is needed to fuel other trades, mines need tools, textiles need dyes, ships need lumber.

From all this you can then look and say ok the dukedom of beardhead has extensive forest for lumber but not much else and they're able to do trade with the shipyard down the river to get what they need but the duke has heard of backroom deals among the merchants to move the shipyard and switch lumber suppliers and sends his agents to protect his interests.

Or as another example sir salten has nothing to the family name but a salt mine so difficult to reach that it's not really economically viable however recent paranoia among the nobles has led to a sudden influx of political prisoners in need of some wretched place out of sight. With the growing promise of cheap labor tipping the balance of economic viability for the mine and a personal service to great lords finally bringing glory to the family the young knight sets about to escalate the political witchhunts and raise funds to commission a more full prison around the mine.

Stuff like that.

>>51164968

Technically, there is a sort of geography if you take into account how these arcology-ships connect to each other. If a certain ship has a route to X area over Y area, it's going to have its interests more focused on area X, even if it setting up a route to area Y is technically a trivial manner.

>>51164734
Guillotines.

>>51164768
Supposedly Napoleon said Geography is destiny. Whether he said it or not, so fucking true.

>>51164853
mountains make for great barriers and or monster habitats