The trouble with this sort of thinking is that what makes sense for women's fashion in /actual/ history doesn't make sense for Battlemaster. In the real Middle Ages, women (barring a few extreme exceptions) didn't lead troops into battle, have true equality with men, or hold much power in their own right (with some notable exceptions). That means that BM women will dress and act differently than real medieval women.
And the trouble with this sort of thinking is that it removes /all/ historical reference. BM women aren't like medieval women, granted. But then again, neither is BM war. Nor BM government. Nor BM religion or oaths. Why work for historical accuracy at all? BM isn't history, it's fantasy!
No. Historical accuracy is the measure because it is the only conceivably objective measure. Some systematic exceptions do exist (like sex equality); but that still doesn't explain (indeed, it goes the opposite) why BM women seem to be all dressed in 16th century formal attire. A woman in tunic and hose? Fine, makes sense given our setting. But anachronism doesn't.
Why on earth would this be true? BM is /not/ medieval Europe. There are six different continents which have regular ship traffic between them. You don't think that there is trade or that we, as the very highest of nobles would have the best that we can get our grabby hands on? We are Queens and Dukes and Barons (and the family members of such) for the most part and even those "mere" knights are wealthier and more important than 99% of the other inhabitants of the realm (those NPC minor nobles and peasants).
False. There is not regular ship traffic between the six continents. I believe Tom has said that they are to be treated as more like independent game worlds than as physical continents, or something to that effect.
However, you do make a good point: it is plausible silk could be plentiful IN SOME PLACES. Though plentiful is, of course, relative. Plentiful for medievals still does not equal plentiful for moderns.
The issue is that BM characters seem to have NO scarcity. Okay, so you come from a silk-producing area: so where are you getting your wool? Your leather? Your iron? Your silver? Your gold? BM characters appear to have access to infinite resources without any reference to practical necessity, geographic location, plausible culture, or historical accuracy. They are dressed like moderns in that their dress seems more chosen from a world market than determined by a regional one.
Regarding class, yes, we would have some silk (or other expensive accoutrements). I have no issue with that, just as I have no issue with the occasional prestigious, wealthy hero being covered in glistening steel plate armor (despite that being a 15th century style). My issue is when EVERY noble is ALWAYS dressed like that, when every outfit is a costume and every costume is systematically anachronistic and globalized.
I think that there is little point in trying to history-Nazi around reasonable fashion choices.
I define reasonable fashion choice as "historically plausible fashion choice."
For one thing, even people who are /trying/ to get the dress right mostly fail. (I rarely see anyone wearing hose and codpieces, for example, or talk about hats...even the /men/ wore hats or hoods regularly. If someone is making a genuine effort to describe reasonable fashion, then I'm not going to quibble that /properly/ they should be wearing a tunic and hose, and where, by the gods are their tabards and codpieces?) For another, real world fashion was influenced by religion in a way that just doesn't exist in Battlemaster. There is no central Catholic church to exercise political control over morals (including what would be appropriate dress).
Codpieces aren't widely popular among nobility until later in the 13th century;I generally restrict my characters to 900-1100. That said, my characters generally do wear tunic, hose, tabards, cloaks, and hoods. Though I usually don't overly concern myself with describing my characters' clothing.
Finally, you are correct in noting we have no central Catholic church. But we also have no other RP culture. BM's world is a cultural vacuum, by and large, with just a few exceptions. As such, if a place has a clear culture (I think of Irombrozia for this), sure, dress for the culture (we had a sort of "tropical religious fanatics" type thing going on). But most BM realms don't have a culture able to supply that kind of depth. So medieval history should be the default, not recklessly anachronistic fantasy novels.
There is no point in imposing real-world fashion into a light-fantasy world where it would just not make sense.
BM doesn't make sense /without/ real-world impositions.
