Holdings of Lord Tomas (Introduction and part 1)

The Holdings of Lord Tomas will be a series of entries I hope to post on and off for a fair time to follow. Lord Tomas (also to be frequently mentioned as Sir Tomas) is a noble NPC who was part of an AD&D campaign I dm'd in the late 80's to the mid 90's. His estates and the neighboring territories were the site of many a low to mid level adventure. The posts that follow should be considered a work in progress, a flexible notebook, as I may collect them at some point in the future as part of a larger game work. I hope to cover a wide range of topics that are relevant to the Holdings of Lord Tomas in an enjoyable, informative and gameable fashion. Hopefully the posts that follow will provide hints and details others can work into their own games.

The adventuring party in my campaign at the time first met Lord Tomas lame in bed due to a wound the local clergy could not treat after meeting a clergyman (Brother Dollop) and a page on the imperial highway where it bisected a local road seeking help against a menace that threatened the manor that the wounded Lord Tomas was unable to meet.

Here now is the body of the First of hopefully many entries:

Lord Tomas Adrippa is a Baron and Knight of the Tahlmyrian empire. His holdings in the Old Olrinian March are modest but not insignificant. Three fortifications are present: the manorial castle, a village stronghold and a watchtower all staffed by a small a garrison of troops.
Tomas Adrippa is the 15th Baron in his family line to own these holdings. He is 53 years of age. He has four adult sons, the eldest two have answered a call to duty and are campaigning at the southeast border where goblins, orcs and worse menace the people at the edges of Jolumbria. His third eldest son is serving as seneschal to a doddering uncle of Lord Tomas far to the south near the coast and the youngest of his adult sons is an officer in the Imperial Legions serving to maintain order in the High Vales. His third wife has borne him three children to date, a son now seven years of age soon to be offered as a page to another lord, a daughter of 5 and an infant boy.
He also has two married adult daughters and a few grandchildren.

His nearest neighbors are Andros Adrippa (a distant cousin and one of the reasons we will refer to the holdings as those of Lord Tomas instead of those of Lord Adrippa), The Duchy of Ortossa to the south and the sizable but poorly maintained holdings of the Leifco family to the north (who are more interested in their ancestral holdings far to the south then in the backwater region that the holdings of Lord Tomas are a part of).

The holdings of family of Lord Tomas were once politically significant to the Empire as it fought, defeated and assimilated the Olrinian successor states. Economically the region is of little serious economic value beyond farming and grazing. A fair number of ruins can be found within a couple days march of the holdings of Lord Tomas: ancient Olrinian edifices, ruins from the times of imperial expansion, remnants from the era when the old marches were a booming frontier region of the empire, fortresses and villages that have remained empty since the goblin wars and even recent leavings of those that have moved on to seek fortunes in the new frontiers.

The northern border of holdings of Lord Tomas are marked by a river which is overlooked by a old watch tower (once the family keep a very long time ago), the eastern border is a secondary imperial highway running more or less north to south, the western border is a ridge of hills rising from the forests and the southern border is a half league south of the old west road (now disused except for access within the holding). The neighboring Adrippa lands maintained and owned by his cousin run more or less east to southeast along a new road branching off of the imperial highway and with a total territory three times that of the holdings of Lord Tomas.

Lord Tomas is vassal to no man directly as the family holdings were granted by imperial writ but as an imperial knight is sworn to protect the empire, the emperor and the senate. He has traveled to the imperial seat in his youth to make an oath of imperial duty to then reigning emperor (actually Empress Aribeth III ) but has never been called to make the oath before the current emperor or the senate.
Two vassals of Lord Tomas have holdings that will not generally be accounted for in these writings one holds a small hill fort overlooking the river on the northwest edge of Lord Tomas' holdings and the other maintains a pleasant villa on a lake at the border of the Duchy of Ortossa due to the extent and location of his holdings he has been compelled to swear fealty to the Duke in addition to Lord Tomas.