Manor House/Mansion or Castle

[scarmiglionne4]

I need a home for a wealthy noble who very much enjoys hunting. The campaign is fantasy based on late antiquity. I am thinking this man is descended from a barbarian tribe that is something like the Huns.

What type of house do you suppose he would live in?

[Elemental]

That depends... How rich is he? Does he need protection from his enemies? Does he like opulent displays of wealth?
It's likely he has more than one residence if he's rich enough. Perhaps each one serves a different purpose?

[Jay R]

It depends on the setting. In an early medieval setting, he's a noble, he has a keep. What the defenses of that keep are like depend on his neighbors.

In a Renaissance-like setting, he has a manor house, which is the ancestral home, and where he spends as little time as possible. By choice, he's at the hunting lodge out in the forest.

But the crucial fact is this: what kind of home it is doesn't depend on the person living in it; it depends on the person who had it built. That is your barbaric hunter only if he earned the riches of the family, by some other means than combat. It was probably built either by his ancestor, or (since he's a barbarian), by the ancestors of the noble he conquered to get it.

[locutus]

A manor house would go with a manor, roughly 9 square miles of land and the village and peasant families living thereon. It would be tough to build a defensive fortification on the spare labor of these peasants, but such a noble would have a pretty respectable manor house, with attendant barns and winepress and storehouses etc.

A More significant noble, such as a count or baron will rule over many manors, and be able to secure some kind of tax from each. This makes it easier to build a more elaborate house, which really could mean anything right up to the palace of Versaille. In the case of a Marquisate, or a County that bordered the edge of the kingdom, the wealth that would go into an elaborate house would go into a massive stone fortress. This would not necessarily halt the advance of an enemy, but it certainly would be a safe place to launch raids from, which would make it VERY expensive to march a column past it.

You said he was wealthy, so he is probably a Count. A love of hunting suggests a large forest nearby. A certain amount of forest will be part of each of his manor subordinates, but he may have some additional land set aside for hunting. Barbarian descent suggests that he perhaps earned his fief recently, rather than inheriting it, and perhaps it is on the edge of the kingdom. It wouldn't be too odd for the king to grant a Marquisate along with the responsibility for clearing it out and developing it, so perhaps this is what happened. I think a castle makes the most sense in this context :)

[scarmiglionne4]

A manor house would go with a manor, roughly 9 square miles of land and the village and peasant families living thereon. It would be tough to build a defensive fortification on the spare labor of these peasants, but such a noble would have a pretty respectable manor house, with attendant barns and winepress and storehouses etc.

A More significant noble, such as a count or baron will rule over many manors, and be able to secure some kind of tax from each. This makes it easier to build a more elaborate house, which really could mean anything right up to the palace of Versaille. In the case of a Marquisate, or a County that bordered the edge of the kingdom, the wealth that would go into an elaborate house would go into a massive stone fortress. This would not necessarily halt the advance of an enemy, but it certainly would be a safe place to launch raids from, which would make it VERY expensive to march a column past it.

You said he was wealthy, so he is probably a Count. A love of hunting suggests a large forest nearby. A certain amount of forest will be part of each of his manor subordinates, but he may have some additional land set aside for hunting. Barbarian descent suggests that he perhaps earned his fief recently, rather than inheriting it, and perhaps it is on the edge of the kingdom. It wouldn't be too odd for the king to grant a Marquisate along with the responsibility for clearing it out and developing it, so perhaps this is what happened. I think a castle makes the most sense in this context :)

Nearby Forest: Check. On the Edge of a Kingdom: Check

I would rather not have him be called a Count because that'd be too obvious and cliche if you get what I am saying :[. So he has had the home for "generations." I had planned on him having servants, but not necessarily having him over any other nobles. Much of my world is uncivilized and undeveloped. This noble's "line" may even predate the nearby Kingdom, coming from a time in the not so distant past when the barbarian tribes were the only powers in the area.

Ok, so castle or keep seems to be the general consensus.

[scarmiglionne4]

That depends... How rich is he? Does he need protection from his enemies? Does he like opulent displays of wealth?
It's likely he has more than one residence if he's rich enough. Perhaps each one serves a different purpose?

He only has the one house. He doesn't get out much due to a "hereditary disease" inherent in his "line." If he has any business such as trade he needs done, he has one of his servants handle it.

He prefers trophies of his kills to shows of wealth. He is not known to have enemies. He lives in the wilderness miles from the trade road. No one seems to have ever visited him or seen him, only his servants, and then never anywhere but outside his home.

[Driderman]

If we're talking late antiquity, a hall, a couple of longhouses and a wooden palisade might be more fitting than manor houses or castles.
Although some form of advanced fortification built by an earlier, more advanced civilisation (think Britain and the Romans) might be in order. Place would realistically likely be in a state of disrepair since the current owners don't actually have the technology to maintain it.

[Kadzar]

Nearby Forest: Check. On the Edge of a Kingdom: Check

I would rather not have him be called a Count because that'd be too obvious and cliche if you get what I am saying :[. So he has had the home for "generations." I had planned on him having servants, but not necessarily having him over any other nobles. Much of my world is uncivilized and undeveloped. This noble's "line" may even predate the nearby Kingdom, coming from a time in the not so distant past when the barbarian tribes were the only powers in the area.

Ok, so castle or keep seems to be the general consensus.

Well, according to Wikipedia, "Earl" is the equivalent title given to British nobles of that rank.

[Kobold Esq]

And of course, there is no garlic in the garden.