What reward would you rather prefer for saving a kingdom?

A big busty elf girl.

>Hand of a Princess/Prince
Can I have both?

There's a lot of overlap, but you can still infer some differences.

Riches implies liquid assets, which isn't the same as owning land, especially unprofitable land, or having a title, especially a largely ceremonial title.
The hand of a prince/princess implies connections, but marrying the king's sixth daughter isn't likely to make you a duke or shower you with cash.
A dukedom certainly implies land, wealth, and power, but it's entirely possible to be the duke of a small, shitty area where you don't directly control any land at all, as it's all divided between your stingy vassals.
Becoming a knight doesn't need to imply anything, especially if it's purely ceremonial or, conversely, your side benefits are all expected to come from valiant deeds rather than Being A Knight.
You can own a lot of land without being rich or titled from it, especially if it's the kind of gnoll-infested border trash ye typical adventurer would value but somehow isn't already taken.

Unrelated to anything at all, there's a party game called Dokapon Kingdom where the reward for winning is the hand of the princess, even if you're female.

There's also a pic related prince of the underworld who serves as an antagonist, so I like to think a three-way solves all problems forever.

>Assuming I'm somehow a big, manly studly McStud
Dukedom. I get to be a noble, which means respect, power and the guarantee that my family will live a cozy life for generations to come. Scarcity will be a thing of the past, especially if it's a semi-decent duchy with good resources and arable land.

>Assuming I'm a beta fuccboi who bumbled his way into saving the kingdom
The hand of a princess who behaves like an onee-san type and tenderly dominates me

To be fair, there have historically been many titles that only existed on paper and only gave prestige. The most radical example has to be Horthy, who was the regent of a kingdom without a king and the admiral of a landlocked country.

Always wanted to play that game with my tabletop buddies. It's basically a weebified sandbox DnD monty haul with the cooperative spirit of Mario Party. Looks like fun.

>so I like to think a three-way solves all problems forever.
Are girls taking turns in who tops, or what? Because that's a fuccboi if I ever saw one.

>Riches
Always good, but should be accompanied with a title if the hero actually saved the Kingdom. Count works for someone whose individual heroics saved the Kingdom, say by vanquishing a monster. Count comes from Compte, meaning "companion", and were traditionally trusted members of the King's court. If the hero lead a fighting force to save the kingdom he should be made an Earl, as it comes from Jarl which was a rank denoting military command.

>Hand of a Princess/Prince
Would only be acceptable if the character was already of noble blood. The only exception to that would be really small kingdoms, whose kings are more tribal chieftain than feudal lord.

>Dukedom
Really only works if you killed a Duke in the process, or raised an army and conquered a lot of land to form your own Dukedom. Otherwise the King would have to give up a huge chunk of his lands or (try to) take lands from a powerful noble. Dukes typically had vast lands and were often as almost as powerful as Kings, so it only makes sense of the hero attained or demonstrated kingly power via his heroics.

>Becoming a Knight of the kingdom
Not enough for saving the Kingdom, see "Riches".

>Own plot of land
Same as "Riches".

Only exception to any of this would be if the hero was low born and only saved the kingdom via dumb luck or being in the right place at the right time. Then Riches would be acceptable, or maybe a Knighthood if he was a fighting man.

Furry genocide

As everyone is basically just pointing out the overlap, let me give you some more details that will actually help you understand how titles/wealth worked in the middle ages.

First disclaimer: none of this is set in stone. If everyone respected titles, changing classes was almost
impossible and was loyal then no wars would have ever happened. Remember rule 0: Bigger Army Diplomacy.
Now onto the actual explanation.

To start, Knighthood did not exist as an honor like it is today. Knight (which wasn't even really a term used until the late middle ages at least in
the way we think of it today) was, depending on when and where, somewhere between a very high ranking commoner and a low ranking noble. If we are just going by the
title way of looking at it and ignore holy orders and mercenary knights etc. a knight was basically a warrior wealthy enough to own a horse and armor and may have had
a small amount of land, but wouldn't be high ranking enough to, say, have power over peasants (once again, very broad generalization). Instead, a knight would be in service
to a higher ranking noble, who would call on him in times of war. I wouldn't call a knight a "professional" warrior though, simply because he wasn't paid to fight,instead he fought
as payment to his lord.

So for the purposes of your question, being given a choice between being a knight and a duke is sort of like being offered either the position of the 6th floor HR manager or being the
Regional VP in charge of the entire building.

Speaking of which, the titles themselves get confusing because just like the word knight, the terms duke, baron, lord, prince, king and emperor all varied in meaning from place to place
and during various periods of time, so lets just treat the Dukedom as being a high-ranking lord. Now, while somewhat minor titles of nobility could be awarded without any real powers
or responsibility during the middle ages, being a duke was too important.

If you were a duke, you had to have land, which meant wealth. Gold and jewels can only be used to hire mercenaries once, and don't come with a place to build a castle. As being a landowner
was, by definition, being a noble, (in fact, you were infinitely more likely to be a landless noble then a land owning peasant in certain places) you can't just have land. And as we have established
being a knight meant being a warrior with a horse and armor in service to another noble, then you were basically a knight as well, but you wouldn't be called that, as this would actually be an
insult (knight literally meant servant) to a great lord.

As for the riches, while being offered gold in return for service is literally the foundation for society, as previously noted it would be impossible for any amount of wealth to be given to you
to equal lands and titles, because without those how will you defend your giant pile of money? Remember, lands = people = soldiers.

Finally, the princess. OK, if you are being offered this, then you have to already be a high, high ranking noble, presumably in a foreign land since it doesn't make sense to offer titles to someone
who already has them (and before you say "why not more?" because nobles who control more lands then kings become kings very quickly) which makes all of these choices just extras to be spoken
by a bard whenever you enter a joust. The funny thing is this isn't even the most prestigious of these rewards by far, unless the princess is an only child. Princesses married all the time, domestically to powerful lords who could rival you in order to keep them close or to rulers of other countries to try to secure three seconds of peace. A princess lasts only her lifetime, though, lands last centuries, so being
granted those would be the greatest reward you could be granted.

Land = Income in that kind of setting so that crosses out riches. Also, being a land owner will probably give you access to your choice of the local women so kinda cross out princess

Knight = landed gentry with title so crosses out land and riches, and you'll probably have your choice of titled women within the fief, be it county, or duchy, or march, or whatever.

dukedom = same as above, just higher station and more access to more.

hand of princess = same as above, but even higher station and even more access to more (except your pick of bride).

Riches is the only one that doesn't really imply the others.

just to clarify, I mean to agree with these two posters

>Riches

Is there a way to invest it that is effective?

>Hand of a Princess/Prince

This was a IRL rewards my family on my mothers side got in the 17th century. However it was a illegitimate daughter of the king of France, not a Princess. Plus side it came with a bit of land, money, and most importantly generations of well paying jobs inside influential places like the Tax office.

>Dukedom

Not all duchy's were created even. If land and money are not part of the deal then pass. Its a means to feel the post and have the person in the post be a puppet at that point.

>Becoming a Knight of the kingdom

This happened on my fathers side in the late 16th century. Ancestor was a Scot who left for the kingdom of Bavaria for religious reasons. Became one of the king's court musicians and a body guard. Got our current last name out of it. The next king of Bavaria REALLY liked to burn witch and to watch them burn. Seeing family lore makes a point that we did the same shit for the first generations over before moving over to the color guards this means my Ancestors likely did the highly metal thing of playing music for the witch burnings. Later on we left in the 1730s for the English colony's over a back pay issue. My direct Ancestor of the time opened 8 business in the first 3 years , ,of which only 7 of which were whorehouses.

> I do not need the money
> but you still owned me the money and will not give it
> fuck you my liege
> I will make my own domain
> with hookers and blackjack
> and more hookers
...
> Now I need to get away from all these hookers, time to take up whaling.

I would take that as my second pick.

>Own plot of land

If it was a nice plot of land that would be my first pick.

>Riches
What more is there to success than PROFIT?

Investing the profit in capital so it can be used to make more profit.

That just goes without saying. Like investing it as crookedly as possible, making sure the returns your making on your less-than-legal venture outweigh the cost of paying others to look the other way.
It's basic economics.

Dukedom, considering it's like a Knight that went supersaiyan 5, and also by definition has a ton of land and, if not riches, then at least assets conducive to gaining riches over time.

Let me try to make a less retarded question, which reward would you prefer:

A) A one time injection of a large amount of funds in the form of coin or other valuables for easy transport. But would otherwise allow you to continue your globetrotting adventures.

B) Some form of landed title that, while it would include riches and influence as a matter of course, would effectively end your adventuring career as you know it as it also includes responsibilities that, at best, means the campaign is now focused on politics and domain management.

Dukedom. That's basically the highest rank you can get just under King, and so you can expect lots of land, soldiers, and riches to come with the position.

Saving a kingdom is a moral obligation, why should there be a reward?

Ownership of the forbidden library
Become lich
Turn place into my necropolis
Become eternal king

Because you know that you're more competent than most of the people running this kingdom, so you can use that reward to accomplish even greater things. It becomes a lot easier to save the kingdom when you have a few thousand soldiers under your command.

If the princess is cute, then I'd ask to marry her.
If not, I'll accept riches as payment so I can fund my next adventure. Repeat ad nauseum until I either settle down with my True Love™, retire due to my body being unable to keep up with the path of a wandering warrior, or die ingloriously in the middle of some shithole cave.

You will DIE for this you weakling!

You don't always get land with a knighthood

Alright, looks like I screwed up and chose princess instead. How I invest her for those sweet sweet dividends? Is there a market in princessery?

The life-force of all the nobles born in the year of the eclipse, of course.
Then their lands, their titles, and their wives.

It's still better than the alternative, that OTHER would-be sorcerer-king will enslave and sacrifice the whole kingdom, not just a few blue bloods!

>Hand of a Princess/Prince
This one. Because if you get this, then you automagically get
>Riches
>Dukedom
>Knight of the kingdom
>plot of land

Is that a figurative hand, or literally JUST her hand?

Frankly, I'd have to go for XP and level-appropriate treasure, but a princess of my own would be a nice second option.

I would genderflip the king and marry him.

The autism is incredible with this one.