Seneschal and Advocate Archetypes

Nations Dawn
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Hi all! Have started looking into Empire and getting excited about making a character :blush: The aesthetics of Dawn instantly caught my eye, and I’m interested in finding out more about the Seneschal and Advocate Archetypes as I feel they’re closest to the type of game I like to play!

Anyone here who has played either and willing to share their experience? Specific questions I’ve got:

  • Are these archetypes well suited to a first time Empire player (and first time LARPer)? Or should I stick to something a little more combat or magic-focused to get a feel for the whole world/game and whilst I get to know the lore?
  • What kind of skills should I spend character points on to build this archetype of character? Might be my misunderstanding of the system, but nothing jumps out immediately to me in terms of what I’d spend my XP on!
  • I’ve seen a bit here and on the wiki about IC apprenticeships for these archetypes - anyone looking for an apprentice to their Seneschal or Advocate currently?
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Welcome along to Dawn!

I haven’t actually played as either of these archetypes (and recall you don’t have to pick an archetype at all…many don’t…), but I can give a few pointers.

Seneschal is fine to start as. Running the money and funding streams for your House, ensuring all the knights and lords are prepped and ready, holding the purse-strings for them all, the powerful shadow of their bright charisma… it can be a lot of fun.

Advocate is a low-numbers archetype requiring a good understanding of the setting and mechanics (heck, I have no idea how the synod and conclave work, and only a little more about the senate and military council…Don’t ask about the Bourse). While it’s a good goal to work towards, I would not reccomend it as a starting place.

Neither of these archetypes require any mechanical skills! Mage, artisan, or apothecary would all suit, but are not needed.

Asking for an apprenticeship as a new character, especially if it’s as an advocate, sounds like a good plan.

I would suggest that you start play as the seneschal of a House, looking to work towards being an advocate. You might find it profitable to play an artisan in terms of skill points, with a mine/forest as a resource. This enables a steady income stream, some motivation to go out trading, and the ability to make magic items for your House.

Note that as a starting player, PD will be very forgiving if you stagger up to GOD and declare that you wish to make sweeping changes to your character points.

Happy to discuss all of the above further…

Oh, you may also want to ask around here, if you have not already:

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One of the excellent things about playing a yeofolk senschal in Dawn is that you’re in demand. There are a lot more nobles than yeofolk (I don’t know what the ratio is atm).

And don’t think you need to apprentice yourself to anyone, best way to learn is to fling yourself in at the deep end. They’ll be a certain amount of Yeofolk solidarity if you need pointers but just go for it.

There’s plenty of game in trade and making sure your pet noble is well equipped to go be glorious. And having stuff like artificer doesn’t restrict you from going into combat with one of the things you’ve made in support of your noble/nobles.

Artificer + Summer magic and then going up to Summer 2 after your first event is a solid “support” build. But you can go full mage as well, possibly take battle mage and empower. There are a bunch of options that work and as mentioned you can swap your build around completely after your first event if it doesn’t work.

One thing I’d recommend is getting a firm idea between you and the people you’re playing with about how it’s all going to work ooc, I.e. if you’re being a servant in uptime you probably should have less to do during camp takedown and all that kind of thing. But as long as you have some ooc conversations you should be able to get some ground rules sorted.

Best of luck :slight_smile:

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Hiya,

I physrep the Earl of a relatively small house. More than happy to chat with you in DMs or on discord about the Dawnish money game, and I think getting yourself in with a smaller house is probably a great way to cut your teeth on the game as a new player while still getting to fill those seneschal duties. As someone mentioned above, Dawnish nobles can’t do maths so we’re all desperate for seneschal :wink:

Mark

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This is still true of our house of 2 nobles in Dawn, but having been Yeofolk for many years, can do the maths if we wanted , but now as nobles, we are accepting of prosperity payments to help those with cash flow issues or restricted resources , yet still put effort into the Nation & Empire, oh and can’t really be bothered to count the coin any way :face_with_monocle: