Table of Contents
An estate is a building or collection of buildings for your personal use. You can have as many estates as you want, but you need to pay upkeep for each. If you are no longer able to pay the upkeep, your estates will be repossessed and you will lose it.
To make an estate, select from among the components below. The exact details of the estate are still up to you, the below components each serve a clear function and if you want your estate to have that function, you need the listed component. For reasons of explanation, each component lists what it might include, but it is up to you to decide on the exact details or to include additional details or omit certain things.
For example, if you have a large house with three Living Components, you probably want one bigger kitchen instead of three small separate ones. However, please note that in order to give dinner parties, you still need the Dining Component.
Each component also describes a cost in terms of basic upkeep and necessary staff. Upkeep covers all material costs including taxes, mortgage payments (or rent, as the case may be), heating, repair, paint, etc. Staff describes the minimum number and type of staff required to run the component. Without staff for each component, the estate falls in disrepair.
Components include the necessary arrangements for the required staff (such as quarters and an area for them to eat). The cost of staff is not included in the upkeep, however
You may propose additional components for anything not covered, and the list may be extended later. [Prices pending calculations]
Living Component
Each living component provides generous living arrangements for up to two people. It includes such things as bedrooms, servant quarters, an office and a small kitchen to provide enough food to eat. If you want more room or extra guests, you need to take this multiple times
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Maid
Receiving Component
An area designed to entertain guests including a parlour and drawing room. May contain a piano or other instruments, though not big enough to host serious performances.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Footman
Dining Component
A dining component provides a large sized dining room, an extensive kitchen and necessary staff, sufficient to host a proper dining party with guests. If you want to house exceptionally large dinner parties with multiple tables full of guests, you may need to get this component more than once.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Cook, 1 Girl, 1 Footman
Stables Component
Proper stabling for horses and the necessary ammenities to take care of them, as well as a place to store a carriage. Outside the city, this will also include a pasture to exercise or graze the horses. If you have more than two carriages or more than eight horses, you need to get this component more than once.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Groom, 1 Boy
Ballroom Component
A ballroom and adjacent rooms sufficient to hold a proper ball for an entire clan, including housing a small orchestra to play music, and the staff necessary to maintain such an area. If you want a larger ball room to host more than a clan of people, you may need to get this component more than once.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 2 Maids, 2 Footmen
Nursery Component
Rooms for up to four children, including a playroom, toys, a room with a blackboard, teaching materials, etc.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Governess, 1 Maid
Garden Component
A large garden with flowerbeds, statues, sitting area, etc where you can hold garden parties. Per component purchased, you may include one 'special feature' such as a decently sized gazebo, a big marble fountain (or a few small ones), a greenhouse, a hedge maze, etc. If your estate simply has a small yard you don't need this component.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 1 Gardener, 1 Boy
Security Component
Significant security measures to protect the house from outside attack. It includes such things as staff to patrol your estate grounds with dogs to sniff out intruders, as well as defensive architecture. You do not need this component to have a solid wooden door and a butler with a shotgun, but you do need it to have regular security patrols, a barbican and crenelations or the likes. This component may include an armory room but does not provide an arsenal, and security staff will not fight for you offensively.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 2 Guards
Art Component
A collection of paintings, antique vases, statues, etc to make your estate more impressive, and which may impress visitors. Alternatively (or as a second component), this may take the form of special architecture for the house such as a large Gothic decoration with many gargoyles, or hand-carved wooden stairs displaying biblical scenes and marble mosaic floors. All houses come with some amount of art, so this component represents a serious collection some of which can be seasonally cycled and which includes such things as display rooms / galleries.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: 2 Maids
Special Location
A special desirable location for your estate, such as being next to Piccadilly Circus, at a major river or otherwise prime real estate. An exceptionally large estate may, at the discretion of the storyteller, require you have this component twice.
Upkeep: TBD
Staff: None