RPGWW

So recently I tripped across the word "seneschal," incidentally as the game The Riddle Of Steel's term for, basically, a GM. And I realized that I had seen the word before, somewhere, most likely in a different game of some sort. Where was it?

Google is no help; I get links to the SCA, references to In Nomine, and blurbs about Vampire: The Masquerade, as well as a billion and a quarter pages that tell me what a seneschal is (spoiler: a major-domo). None of these help me, because I am not familiar with their source materials; I heard the term elsewhere.

This is where I turn to you guys. What the hell games have or use the word/name "Seneschal"? I know it's somewhere. And fifteen heads is better than just me.

I've only ever previously seen it used as a title for a character in the Girl Genius comic; There it was a guy who runs the City of Mechanicsburg while he waits for the ruling family to come back. Never seen it used in a game anywhere.

FF4 DS renamed Eblan's "Chancellor" to "Seneschal" (if you can call them names). It stands out in my mind since I was unfamiliar with the word.

And, y'know. It wasn't the word that I've seen the 15 billion other times I've played through the game.

Are you sure it's from a game, and not something you might have picked up in school? I wouldn't be surprised if seneschal was an SAT vocabulary word or something, and that might have been long enough ago that you don't remember it as the source.

Apparantly it's some kind of quest/event thing that has the word Seneschal in it. :/

I think Vampire : The Masquerade uses it as well, at least the old version did.

Okay, I'm about to tell an odd story.

I read Priam's post and went "Hey, that's weird, I have a half-formed memory of the use of 'seneschal' in other media, myself, but can't place it. Knowing my habits, it's vastly more likely from a book or book series than from a game of any kind."

So I decided to search for "seneschal" on Wikipedia. About the 90th search result made me go "Ohhhhh." 'Cuz it's sitting on my shelf.

Priam, ever read a book series called The Wayfarer Redemption, by Sara Douglass?

Nope!