Every region is divided into five counties, and over each county stands a title of its own: the third rung of the nobility, below the duchy of its region and the crown of its country. That is 125 counties on the map. Holding one gives you the title and nothing else: no income, no vote and no soldiers come with it.
Each county has a name in the language of the people who first held its region, made the way the region names were: a phrase describing the ground, clipped and fused until it is no longer a word anybody would recognise. The region panel says what the phrase was and what it means.
You still travel between regions, one crossing a day, exactly as travel describes. You never stand in a county. What decides which counties of a region you can act in is how long you have stood in that region.
Every county has a reach from 0 to 4. Within each region the five counties are ranked by how hard they are to get to from the region's open borders, over its mountains, forests and rivers and along its painted roads. So every region has one county you can reach the day you arrive and one that takes four days.
| world days you have stood in the region | the counties you can reach |
|---|---|
| the day you arrive | reach 0 |
| after one turn of the day | reach 0 and 1 |
| after three turns | reach 0 to 3: a county of reach 3 is in reach after three world days |
| after four turns | all five |
The count is of world days turned, the same day the daily move limit uses, so arriving late in a day still gives you a full day at the next turn. Leaving starts it again: cross into another region and back, and you are back to reach 0. A conquest of the region you stand in changes nothing, because you did not move. A character who has never moved has stood in their region since they were born, or since they began if they came into the world grown.
On the map, in the region you stand in, the counties you can reach now are drawn as usual and the others are dimmed; hovering one says in how many days it comes into reach. The region panel says the same for the county you clicked.
A county's liege is whoever holds the duchy of its region. That is worked out from who holds the duchy, never written down, so a new duke is the liege of all five counties the moment he holds the duchy.
A county is open wherever nobody holds it, or a lord above it holds it: the duke of its region, or the king of the country owning that region. It is the open duchy one rung down, for the same reason: a lord who keeps land for himself defends it against his own citizens.
| who holds the county | who you fight for it | |
|---|---|---|
| a count | closed | nobody: only a claim takes it |
| the duke of its region | open | the duke |
| the king of its country | open | the king |
| nobody, under a seated duke | open | the duke |
| nobody, no duke, a seated king | open | the king |
| nobody, no duke and no king | open | nobody: it is yours at once |
A foreign king who comes to hold a county, by inheritance or marriage, is not a lord above it. He holds it as any count does, and only a claim takes it from him.
An open county may be taken, from the region panel, by any living citizen of the country that owns its region who can reach it. Where somebody answers, it is a duel with them: ten health, your one duel of the day, and the ordinary prize either way. Nobody answers for a county against himself, so a duke cannot take an open county of his own duchy this way, and a king cannot take one he would have to defend.
A county admits one contest a day, whoever reaches it first.
Whoever answers for an open county may grant it to another living character, from that character's page: the duke for a county of his duchy that is vacant or his own, and the king for one he holds himself. A vacant county under a vacant duchy goes with the duchy: the king grants the duchy, and the new duke grants its counties. A count cannot grant his county, and nobody can take a county off the count who holds it.
A county passes by the same ladder as every title: the heir you named, then your eldest living child, then your spouse. With none of them it goes to the duke of its region, and where that duchy is vacant it falls vacant. Each child who did not inherit is dealt a claim on what you held, counties included, exactly as for a duchy.
A claim on a county is pressed as a duchy claim is, from a warband camp in the region and standing there, and in addition you must be able to reach the county.