The Minster of {$name}

1

Aberrant Discipline

Resolve: {eccentric saint with his own ideas|charismatic “reformer”|indolent voluptuary|gravely-flawed saint }

Resolve: {Undisciplined monks are committing crimes|The bishop is furious with them|Their ways are infecting other minsters and upsetting abbots|People no longer give gifts to such a dubious minster}

Resolve: {The monks use their resources with ruthless pragmatism|They’ve impressed an important abbot with their non-standard holiness|They’re being supported by a secret heretic or pagan|A lord is finding them a politically cooperative ally}

Resolve: {Spread their new practice to other minsters|Enhance their wealth and pleasures|Destroy their most vocal critic|Found a new minster with their customs}

2

Artful Production

Resolve: {Abbot enamored with beautiful art|Foreigner who brought the artists|Artisan-abbot of a traditional line|Canny trader beneath abbot’s robes}

Resolve: {Thieves seek to plunder the riches|Lords are coercing gifts of rare goods|A crucial ingredient is difficult to obtain|The art is being made with unholy aid}

Resolve: {The gifts the monks can give are very precious|The monks are needed by an important lord|The monks have a storehouse of great treasures|The monks have many allies influenced by gifts}

Resolve: {Recover a stolen treasure|Erect a wondrous work|Persuade a great craftsman to join|Spread their skills to another minster}

3

Autonomous Impunity

Resolve: {Close royal relative being kept out of the way|Abbot with an awesome reputation|Ruthless political kingmaker with much blackmail|Critical supporter of the king}

Resolve: {The minster is claiming more than its due|The minster is protecting a notorious criminal|The minster persecutes a specifc enemy lord|The minster is ignoring its duties}

Resolve: {It has access to a strong force of warriors|Local lords don’t even try to fight it|It has an impregnable physical location|It’s allied with a powerful neighboring king}

Resolve: {Expand its sphere of control|Compel the king to obey its will|Punish a lord who trespassed on its autonomy|Dissuade a meddlesome bishop}

4

Bulwark Against Evil

Resolve: {Grizzled once-warrior abbot|Ascetic saint obsessed with containing the evil|Exhausted and despairing veteran of endless struggle|Secret pawn of the evil who seeks to aid it}

Resolve: {The evil is seeping through the minster’s guard|The evil is twisting the minster itself|Allies are neglecting their duty to help the minster|The evil has suddenly become much stronger}

Resolve: {The monks are fiercely holy in their duties|The minster has martial allies close to hand|The minster has a sacred relic to aid them|The minster is owed many ancient pacts of aid}

Resolve: {Extinguish the evil once and for all|Further entrench the defenses|Discover the current plans of the evil|Destroy a collaborator with the evil}

5

Curative Powers

Resolve: {Utterly unworldly saint-abbot|Pragmatic manager of a sacred resource|Scholarly healer-abbot|Shameless trader in holy miracles}

Resolve: {The curative powers are fading|An important person was not healed|Another minster is trying to take control of the healing source|Pilgrims are being prevented from coming somehow}

Resolve: {The curative powers maintain the monks in ferce good health|The local lords owe the minster many healing favors|Pilgrims have given the minster rich gifts|Many wise healers labor for the minster}

Resolve: {Protect and encourage pilgrims|Heal a gravely-ill important lord|Glorify the healing source with new construction|Defend the healing source from accusations of paganism}

6

Damaged Structures

Resolve: {Wicked abbot abhorred by God|Abbot exhausted by vain repair efforts|Fumbling replacement for an abbot who died in the event|Abbot squeezing all resources for repair}

Resolve: {The damage is worsening|The repairers are secretly incompetent|The devil is interfering with repairs|Until a secret sin is uncovered and punished the damage always reappears}

Resolve: {Pilgrims are bringing aid to repair it|The damage has uncovered a treasure|A sympathetic king has given a gift of land|A foreign artisan is interested in helping}

Resolve: {Persuade a critical artisan to aid the minster|Get vital repair materials|Punish the one who caused the damage|Rebuild it bigger and better}

7

Decaying Glory

Resolve: {Drunken sot of an abbot|Zealous reformer of discipline|Hidebound manager of slow devolution|Overmatched heir to too great a challenge}

Resolve: {Mere decay is turning into active evil and sinfulness|The outside world still expects the minster to do its great duties|The minster’s glory was based on a dark secret that is coming due|The minster’s land is being peeled off by jackal-lords}

Resolve: {It still has a trove of mighty relics|Old agreements grant it great theoretical liberties|A few monks are still fiercely loyal to the old glory|It still has ties with important noble houses}

Resolve: {Get more sufficiently-holy monks to join|Destroy the force that caused the decay|Recover a lost relic crucial to the minster’s glory|Fulfill a great duty that taxes its capacity}

8

Deprived of Land

Resolve: {Cowardly abbot who dares not protest|Reprobate who’s earned his punishment|Political enemy of the culprit|Fool who traded away the land}

Resolve: {The monks go hungry for lack of the land|The ceorls are angry at losing the minster’s lordship|The minster’s obligations go unfulfilled now|The land held some crucial holy place or site}

Resolve: {The monks are tightly unifed by the loss|A new prospect for land has been found|An under-exploited resource is being opened up|The minster calls down curses on the thief}

Resolve: {Punish the thieving culprit|Obtain new land to replace the old|Get a king to force the land’s return|Persuade the bishop to anathemize the culprit}

9

Double Monastery

Resolve: {Abbess who is an excess princess|Abbess who is famed for her holiness|Abbess who is a widowed noblewoman|Abbess who is ungodly but cunning}

Resolve: {There is a secret scandal with visitors or monks|A new noble nun is being intolerable to the sisters|The minster needs to be enlarged for more nuns|The minster needs more monks to do heavy labor}

Resolve: {The nuns have noble kinswomen throughout England|The abbess is a figure of awe|The minster weaves wondrous textiles|The minster has many gifts from the families of nuns}

Resolve: {Drive back a martial threat to the minster|Quell rumors of ungodliness in the minster|Found a daughter-minster to take up excess nuns|Convince a widowed queen to join}

10

Favored by Lords

Resolve: {Abbot of royal blood|Abbot who is a retired war-companion of the lord|Abbot who is a Machiavellian political schemer|Abbot who is a puppet of the lord}

Resolve: {The bishop is jealous of the abbot’s influence on the lord|The minster is hated by the lord’s enemies|The abbot is impoverishing the minster with his aid to his patron|The minster is resented by other monks for getting all the best gifts}

Resolve: {The lord gladly does the abbot’s bidding in many things|The minster is rich with the lord’s gifts|The minster has many monks and ceorls in its service|The minster knows all the secret affairs of the nobility}

Resolve: {Advance their patron’s interests|Quash a rival minster that threatens to win over their patron|Construct a magnifcent edifce honoring their patron’s saintly ancestor|Bury a truth that would turn their patron against them}

11

Heretical Beliefs

Resolve: {Secret pagan or infernalist abbot|Saintly abbot who maintains unacceptable beliefs|Abbot nurturing the remnants of a defeated heresy|Abbot bewitched by a persuasive heretic monk}

Resolve: {The monks are turning their evil upon each other|A greater heretic is seeking to compel their alliance with him|They are widely scorned and rebuked by learned men|God has cursed them with misfortune}

Resolve: {The minster has access to dark sorceries|Local secret heretics support the minster|Pagan forces are supporting the conflict|The heresy has secret or open lordly support}

Resolve: {Spread the heresy to the lords|Destroy a bishop preaching against it|Plant heretical monks in other minsters|Coerce a bishop into supporting it}

12

Impoverished Minster

Resolve: {Spendthrift abbot|Abbot who cares only for feeding his monks|Abbot who has made unrighteous bargains to get needed food|Abbot who seeks to get a different and more proftable minster}

Resolve: {Some monks extort bread by threats or force|The minster has many dependents it dares not cut off|The minster must complete some hard task to win the gift of land it needs|The minster’s ceorls work badly because of some conflict}

Resolve: {The only monks left are those grimly faithful to the minster|The minster has made unconventional allies in an attempt to get food|The minster has a precious treasure it cannot part with|The minster has the sympathies of the bishop}

Resolve: {Convince a lord to give a gift of land|Recover unused land from the beasts or marauders who hold it|Acquire a treasure that can get them more land|Persuade someone to give a regular tithe of food}

13

Incompetent Abbot

Resolve: {Abbot who has gone slightly mad|Abbot obsessed with impractical piety|Abbot who demands every whim be obeyed|Abbot who is trying hard but simply unequal to the task }

Resolve: {The abbot has enraged an important lord|The monks are in semi-open revolt against the abbot|A new policy of the abbot will beggar the minster|A faction is trying to force the abbot out despite the chaos it would cause}

Resolve: {The abbot has many allies among the great|The abbot has great talents in some respects|A stupid choice of the abbot has miraculously worked out very well|There are no conceivable replacements to be found for the abbot}

Resolve: {Push through an ill-thought project|Purge the minster of the abbot’s foes|Persuade a bishop to help cement the abbot’s rule|Fix the woes caused by a grave mistake the abbot made}

14

Learned Monks

Resolve: {Abbot who is a famous scholar|Abbot who is {Irish|Briton} and brought the tradition with him|Abbot who is a charismatic collector of scholars|Abbot who trucks with dark powers for secret lore}

Resolve: {The monks seek dangerous knowledge|A precious book they have has been stolen|Their best scholar is semi-heretical|They are more concerned with mundane wisdom than godly truth}

Resolve: {Their scholars know many practical and useful truths|People implicitly believe what the minster tells them|They have ties to many scholars in other minsters|They have troves of foreign lore}

Resolve: {Acquire a priceless book that is now in perilous hands|Convince another minster’s best scholar to join them|Seek out artifacts and records from a dangerous place|Build a magnificent library of almost a hundred books}

15

Litigious Temper

Resolve: {Abbot who is a grasping legalist|Abbot who is convinced the minster’s profit and God’s will are synonymous|Abbot who is a wastrel who constantly needs more wealth|Abbot who is naturally quarrelsome}

Resolve: {Their wealthy neighbors hate them and their suits|The king is growing angry with the constant suits|They’ve enraged a litigant who wouldn’t be above violence|They risk losing a very critical counter-suit}

Resolve: {They’ve bribed many allies with the wealth they took from others|They have superb negotiators and legal minds|The common folk favor them for their light exactions|They have the solid support of the bishop}

Resolve: {Acquire a piece of land held by a great lord|Reclaim land they legally won but is de-facto held by an armed foe|Acquire documentary proof of a claim|Persuade a king by extra-legal means}

16

Martial Monastics

Resolve: {Abbot who is a former martial hero|Abbot who is kinsman to a warband leader|Abbot who is a military genius|Abbot who is a naturally savage bully}

Resolve: {The bishop is infuriated by their martial habits|They have a bad reputation with the local lords|They’ve gotten in a fight too big for them|They’ve killed someone important with many kinsmen}

Resolve: {Their warriors are made fearless by faith|Their warriors are deniable assets|They have a large store of weapons and shields|The minster is extremely well-fortified}

Resolve: {Break an enemy warband that dares to fight them|Convince the bishop that they’re not responsible for a fight|Persuade a third party to fight on their behalf|Find rewards for warriors who expect gifts for their help}

17

Oppressive Masters

Resolve: {Abbot who is a greedy miser|Abbot who needs the money for a great work|Abbot who scorns ceorls as mere human cattle|Abbot who is fiscally incompetent}

Resolve: {The ceorls are building up to a tax revolt|Some monks are embezzling wealth for a third party|The king is concerned with the unrest being caused|An outside party is taking advantage of the unrest}

Resolve: {The minster is very wealthy|The minster is ruthlessly efficient in its oppression|The ceorls are beaten down and resigned|The king approves of the extra gifts he gets from them}

Resolve: {Suppress a rebel leader among the ceorls|Recover a stolen tithe shipment|Strengthen ties with the secular lords of the land|Show the bishop that the ceorls are merely greedy complainers}

18

Pilgrimage Center

Resolve: {Abbot who is a skilled promoter|Abbot who's of a family that has always guarded the site|Abbot who is a faker who simulates marvels|Abbot who wishes fewer interruptions in the minster’s orderly life}

Resolve: {The monks grow indolent and careless on the wealth of pilgrim gifts|Some trouble is pinching off access to the minster for pilgrims|A rival minster seeks to take control of the site|The holy relic or some precious gift has been stolen}

Resolve: {Many pilgrims bring rich gifts with them|Lords feel obligated to the minster for past miracles they received|The minster is very large and well-built|Local lords guard the minster against interference or trouble}

Resolve: {Acquire a new relic for the site|Alleviate some threat to the relic or the holy ground|Persuade a rich lord to come on a pilgrimage|Guard the pilgrims from some new threat}

19

Rotten Minster

Resolve: {Abbot who is a selfish lord|Abbot who is a mere puppet|Abbot who is well-meaning but totally unclerical|Abbot who has newly inherited the minster and is trying to reform it}

Resolve: {The bishop is disgusted with the lack of clerical discipline|The king is angry about the transparent tax evasion|The “monks” don’t know the first thing about their role|The ceorls are unimpressed by their supposed duties to the minster}

Resolve: {The minster is unencumbered by clerical limits in its activities|The abbot has many secular allies and kinsmen|The minster is very rich|The minster is actually the lord’s personal household}

Resolve: {Persuade the bishop that their clerical discipline is acceptable|Get the king’s permission to add more land to the minster|Find a replacement abbot who can whip the place into shape|Build a splendid monument to the owner’s enjoyment}

20

Terrible Reputation

Resolve: {Abbot who is an open degenerate|Abbot who struggles fiercely to redeem the minster|Abbot who merely pretends to reform|Abbot who is newly-appointed and hard-pressed}

Resolve: {The sin or evil habit is threatening to rise again|The bishop wants to disband the minster but cannot yet do it|Monks refuse to join such a place|Dark practices persist at the minster}

Resolve: {The minster profited greatly from its past evil|A powerful lord is allied with it as he thinks it a pliant tool|A rich reformer seeks to help the minster correct itself|Evil powers help the minster}

Resolve: {Spread their dark ways to other minsters|Convince or stifle the bishop|Build some great edifice to redeem the minster|Make recompense to the lord or land it grievously harmed}

1

was founded in the past few years

2

was founded a generation ago, and its founder passed only recently

3

was founded a century ago and is well-famed in the area

4

was founded in the sixth century, among the first and oldest of minsters

1

Only the abbot and a dozen hardy monks dwell there.

2

The abbot has a few dozen monks in service.

3

Sixty or seventy monks labor here, modest in number but strong in faith.

4

More than a hundred monks pray within its walls, a respectable showing

5

Two hundred monks labor here, an impressive minster.

6

Three or four hundred man this great fortress of God.

1

Acs

2

Ash

3

Ast

4

Beck

5

Berg

6

Bex

7

Brad

8

Burg

9

Burn

10

Caester

11

Cot

12

Denu

13

Don

14

Ey

15

Field

16

Ford

17

Foss

18

Frith

19

Glind

20

Haeg

21

Ham

22

Hay

23

Hirst

24

Holm

25

Hythe

26

Ing

27

Ingas

28

Lang

29

Law

30

Ley

31

Mere

32

Minster

33

Moss

34

Ness

35

Nor

36

Shaw

37

Shep

38

Stan

39

Stead

40

Stoc

41

Stow

42

Southerly

43

Swin

44

Tun

45

Weald

46

Wes

47

Wic

48

Worth

1

A building is in dire need of difficult, costly repairs

2

A disturbing omen recently happened

3

A great criminal has just sought sanctuary there

4

A high-born monk or nun just recently joined

5

A minster project is missing a crucial resource

6

A monk has been accused of a grave crime

7

A monk is causing trouble with the brethren

8

A new relic has just been installed in the minster

9

A sickness is spreading there or nearby

10

An impressive miracle was wrought recently

11

Food-rent is late and stores are low

12

It has an important noble or king as a guest

13

It recently received a very fine gift

14

It's in a law dispute with a neighboring lord

15

It's just annoyed the bishop with some action

16

Its location has just become militarily important

17

Outlaws or its enemies recently dared to raid it

18

The abbot is sick and unable to rule properly

19

The abbot is trying to reform or change the discipline

20

The ceorls on its land have been upset by a thing it did

1

Nothing built in stone, only ruins or new foundations are to be had here.

0

2

A ditch, a stone church, and a few wooden buildings

0

3

An earthen berm for a wall, two churches, and a dormitory.

1

4

A berm, the churches and dormitory in stone, and a few wood buildings.

1

5

A low stone wall, a third or fourth small church as well as other buildings.

2

6

It has a sturdy stone wall, several churches, a half-dozen other stone buildings, and one or two monuments or mausolea.

2

7

It has a sturdy stone wall, more than a dozen stone structures within, and even some structures outside the wall are stone.

3

8

It is almost like a Roman city in miniature, with a score of stone buildings, many fine monuments, and works outside the wall.

4

1

The minster can hardly keep its own monks fed, and all is tattered

-1

2

The minster is poor, its tables lightly-laden and its monks clad poorly against the cold

0

3

The minster has sufficient wealth, without ostentation but without lack

0

4

The minster is prosperous even by Church standards, with fine clothing and rich adornment on the buildings

0

5

The minister is rich and all can see it. Everything is grandly done

1

1

Goldsmithing and the working of precious metals into ornaments

2

Jewel-polishing and the setting of precious stones into adornments

3

Glassblowing, skilled in making windows, mirrors, and fine vessels

4

Winemaking, able to produce the rare and precious vintage

5

Weaving, a particular skill of nuns, along with fine embroidery

6

Bookmaking, scribing and the magnificent illumination of holy texts

7

Architecture, gifted in masonry and building splendid structures

8

Blacksmithing, able to forge war-harness discreetly for good friends

9

Horse-rearing, with herds of fine horses to sell and trade

10

Scholarship, teaching, and the answering of difficult questions

11

Sculpture and painting, making statues, carvings, and adornments

12

Trading, being able to make contact with Frankish merchants