Torpido is a fisshe

[ursula]

In fact, a torpedo is a sting-ray.

The new herald for a new barony recently posted a list of proposed order names to SCAHRLDS. A certain number of people responded with, "Why on earth do you need all those orders? It's not remotely authentic!" She then replied that giving lots of awards is an integral part of the SCA culture, and alienating people by insisting on authenticity with no regard to their feelings is a Bad Plan.

This is the plan for a more-authentic, SCA-friendly baronial award system which I posted:

• As nobility, the Baron and Baroness should give cool stuff to their followers at every opportunity. This could range from free food all the way through, oh, I don't know, piles of gold (assuming your local artisans incline that way). Wearable items with the baronial badge might be particularly appropriate. Earlier on this thread we had some discussion of non-physical cool things to give, as well, such as Freedom of the Barony.
  
  The SCA is very susceptible to the "Anything Done Twice Becomes a Tradition" law. If the Baron and Baroness present the same cool thing twice for the same reason, I'm willing to bet that it will be virtually indistinguishable from an award with a registered name.
  
  
• Actual orders should be limited in number. This can be set up like the Award of Arms. Everyone understands that an AoA honors a wide range of things. It also carries a certain precedence. I'm not the right sort of herald to ask about how precedence works with Baronial awards, but something along the lines of Order of Cool People and Order of Absolutely Astonishing People seems reasonable, and bards and fighters (and clerics and rogues?) can all proudly belong to the Order of Astonishing People together.
  
  
• The Barony should allow for barony-sponsored guilds, military companies, schools, and the like which are modeled on medieval groups other than knightly orders. Membership or title in a specific guild may be the best way to honor skill in a specific area.
  

(For those of you playing along at home, one natural conclusion from this line of reasoning is that the best way to deal with awards with unregistered names such as the Tsveti Madrone [which comes with a flower medallion and can be received multiple times] is NOT to register the name, but to treat it as a specific example of the Baron and Baroness' great generosity in giving gifts to worthy subjects.)

Comments

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

part of it is every baron/baroness wants a legacy (I know I did) and so they want to create something that can be identified as theirs after they step down.

creating an award or order is one way to do that. it also allows you to emphasise something that you find important and of value, and as an award/order, there's more chance of that value being promoted after you're gone.

[ursula]

I really think this is one of those situations where we can eat our cake and have it too: we can have cool traditions which honor nifty people and activities AND be more authentic AND avoid wasting everyone's time on inauthentic registrations.

The problem is that we have one good idea ("reward cool stuff") and one period phenomenon (knightly orders) and we're trying to shove all the rewarding-cool-stuff behaviour into the knightly orders box. If we take the awards that aren't like knightly orders and change the schtick so we're not pretending they ARE knightly orders-- in other words, change "I hereby present you with the Award of the Flying Pig" to "The great Baron in his wondrous generosity has commanded his artisans to build for you this intricately crafted model of a Flying Pig" or "The Baroness has granted you revenue from ten acres of land near the town of Saint Cuthbert, where legend has it pigs can fly" or "The Baroness congratulates you on your membership in Saint Cuthbert's Academy, full of men and women who are knowledgeable even in the creation of Flying Pigs"-- then we aren't inflicting the dubiously authentic phrase Award of the X on innocent ears, we have some nifty new ceremonies, AND we can take the things that walk like a knightly order and quack like a knightly order and start treating them like a knightly order. (In other words, convene them for some reason other than inducting new members. To walk into court together and look cool? To give them more presents? I'm guessing there are period Knightly Order Activities which wouldn't require more commitment from already-busy people. Let's put that on the list of Things To Research.)