Monday, February 17, 2014

More 7th Sea: The Pazo

As I was planning some stuff in Castille (the common language of the PCs and the nationality of one and a fourth of them), I realized that I really had no idea what Spanish manor houses look like aside from what I've gathered thinking about ranchos in California. That's not really how I like to go about things, so I started to do a little research.
The manor houses of Galicia are known as "pazos," a cognate with palace. I can't find a lot of information about them online, but it's clear they share some elements with the English manorhouse of the 17th-18th centuries though they appear to be much more formidable in terms of defense.
The actual historical analogues of Castille are Galicia, Leon, Navarra, and (surprise!) Castile. Like all else in the 7th Sea world, the history of Spain has been simplified to reduce the hideous complexity of the past. I've yet to find any good maps of the layout of the pazos.

This brings me to a second point about 7th Sea—namely, a lot of information is missing from the books. For example, I've never seen a list of prices for cargo anywhere, nor for the food required to feed crew members on a ship. The governments of the various nations and their nobility are only vaguely elaborated even in the kingdom sourcebooks. It's unclear whether or not the Castillian title "Don," for instance, refers only to the governors of the huge Ranchos or to all landed nobility—or indeed if there even are lesser nobility in that sense, as the Castille sourcebook refers to gubenadores and caballeros but never any mention of those running individual towns and estates.

I've simply decided to call them "Don" as well.

3 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Actually, The region where is possible to find the last castillians magic-users, is analogue to Galicia.

    Oh, if you want a more spanish feeling, don´t say "rancho", we don´t call it that way, that is for mexicans. A better word is "cortijo". If you look for that word, you will find for buildings more common in regions of the south of Spain, as AndalucĂ­a. Cortijos are descendents of the roman villa.

    "Don" is the equivalent to the english "Mister". Long time ago, it was also the word that said the person was a noble or at least, a hidalgo, just as "Sir", I think.

    "Gobernador" is a apropiate word for a person that rule a province.

    I hope you will find useful this comment. And sorry for my english, is not very good :).

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