merlyn

Of course, there's still the "Uther lusts after the wife of one of his noblemen and plunges the kingdom into civil war as a result" aspect. As for the deception of Igraine (and all of this, I should warn, is coming more from the perspective of an amateur Arthurian buff than a gamemaster, I should add), it is (from the perspective of Geoffrey of Monmouth's account) the whole point of the story - to give Arthur a magical and marvelous conception (one used for other mythical or semi-mythical heroes such as Heracles and Alexander the Great). Although I can't help thinking that the story doesn't quite match this element to its surroundings. The obvious difference is that Uther is at war with Gorlois over Igraine at the time, a concept not found in other such tales (in which the "real father disguised as the husband" is a god or magical being who visits the mother in disguise while her husband is away, opportunist fashion). I suspect that Geoffrey, setting Arthur's birth after Britain had been converted to Christianity (necessary when following Arthur's dating to the Saxon invasions), felt that he couldn't use the notion of a god siring Arthur in that setting - so he had to make it Uther, and in turn, have Gorlois slain quickly afterwards so that Uther could marry Igraine and bestow some level of legitimacy upon Arthur (with a separate party - Merlin - providing the magical disguise). And in turn, the most economical way of doing this was to have Gorlois slain fighting Uther over Igraine. But in the new setting, the more logical solution of Uther's problem would be to defeat and slay Gorlois (breaking the apparent stalemate in the siege of Gorlois's castle somehow) rather than to pay a one-night visit to Igraine in Tintagel, disguised as Gorlois (even if Uther apparently seems too impatient to wait for a plan to resolve the aforesaid stalemate - which, ironically, is resolved shortly after he leaves), especially since, if anything went wrong, Uther would be trapped in the castle surrounded by men loyal to the Duke. It feels like moving a painting to a new frame that doesn't suit it as well as the original. All the same, there is one advantage of having the King Uther Period with all the examples of Uther and his nobles' "Might makes RIght" attitude (not only the case of Gorlois and Igraine, but also, a bit earlier in the "Great Pendragon Campaign"'s account, Uther and Prince Madoc deserting Syagrius in spite of their alliance with him); it brings home the need for something better, something to be represented by Arthur and the Round Table.

One advantage with starting during the Boy King Period (or later): You don't have to worry over the player knights' response to Uther's war with Gorlois over Igraine (I recall an earlier thread here on that subject), and possibly trying to change history by getting rid of Uther before he can beget Arthur.

I'm definitely interested in The Arthurian Concordance. I understand it's some sort of annotation to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which I'd certainly enjoy reading.

They could do what Green Knight Publishing did, and reprint many old works of Arthurian fiction.

I've only glanced at it so far, but the artwork looks very appealing - it definitely catches the design of a medieval illuminated manuscript.

I'm interested in the Arthurian Concordance as well.

Will we get reprints of earlier works of Arthurian fiction (the way Green Knight Publishing reprinted works like "The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis", "To the Chapel Perilous", and "Kinsmen of the Grail") as well as new works in this line?

I've sometimes imagined a scenario where the players succeed in disposing of Mordred and Agravaine, breaking up Lancelot and Guinevere's affair, etc. - confident that they've saved the kingdom. Then, after the Quest of the Holy Grail (which only a few knights still successfully achieve), the kingdom enters a decline with nothing left to do. The Adventures of Logres are over with the Grail's passing. Arthur enters a decline and, after Guinevere's passing, falls under the spell of a scheming mistress who, once he dies in bed, pulls the rings off his fingers and flees. (Yes, I did have Alice Perrers in mind; it seems all the more appropriate in light of Edward III modeling himself so much on King Arthur but having a different end.) The splendors of Camelot and the Round Table are tarnished by this decay, and the player knights realize too late that the traditional Downfall was actually a merciful act, to bring the kingdom to a quick end once it had passed its climax and thus avoid such a fate.

I wonder whether the Arthurian Companion is a new version of the one written by Phyllis Ann Karr, in the early days of "Pendragon", or something else.

I've just been reading a newly-published book on King Arthur, John Matthews' "The Great Book of King Arthur and His Knights" of the Round Table", a collection of retellings of Arthurian tales not found in Malory (though some well-known in their own right, such as the red and white dragons at Vortigern's castle). In the Introduction, Matthews mentioned working on a new edition of Malory for Chaosium Inc., which, he stated, will contain "marginal glosses" to fill in the background on Malory's work. This is the first I've heard of this edition, and Chaosium Inc.'s involvement suggests it's connected to "Pendragon" (and probably the sixth edition in particular). Does anyone know more about it? (The annotations are the part that's triggered my curiosity.)

I wonder whether this is just one of those inconsistencies in Malory's work that we should not worry too much about; elsewhere, for example,he seems uncertain over whether the Dolorous Blow was inflicted by Sir Balin, or by a spear (apparently floating in mid-air) in retribution for the Fisher King trying to draw the sword aboard the Ship of Solomon meant for Sir Galahad. (Not to mention equal uncertainty over whether King Pelles is the Fisher King/Maimed King or whether they're different people.) He even states, at the end of the story of Pelleas and Ettarde, that Pelleas would achieve the Holy Grail, but that doesn't happen when he gets to the Grail Quest itself.

Since dwarfs almost always appear in the role of attendants (except for a dwarf knight whom Gawain meets at the start of the Pelleas and Ettarde story), I suspect that these are human dwarfs, treated as freaks and curiosities in a crueler time.

While making such changes to the story could be considered whitewashing, similar changes *did* take place during the medieval development of the Arthurian legend. Take Percival, for example. In Chretien de Troyes' poem, he, upon finding out that knights exist, runs off for Arthur's court, callously abandoning his mother who promptly dies from a broken heart (he sees her swoon out of grief but rides away with a tone of "Who cares?"), thoughtlessly gets a lady in trouble with her knight by helping himself to her ring, and kills a knight for his armor (a knight who has challenged Arthur's court and stolen a cup off Arthur's table, but with Percival caring only about the armor - which, admittedly, he mistakenly believes to be rightfully his due to not understanding Kay's sarcasm) - all behavior that can only be excused by the fact that he's young, naive, and ignorant about the outside world. Malory's account of how Percival came to Arthur's court considerably softens the story. He has Percival's older brother Aglovale bring him to Arthur's court to be knighted, without any mention of Percival abandoning his mother (we learn later, during his version of the Grail Quest, that she did indeed die soon after his departure, but with much less sense of his deserting her), the misadventure in the pavilion and the fight with the Red Knight are omitted, and the main event is the mute handmaiden speaking when she greets Percival - but without Kay whacking her and Percival subsequently avenging her - giving the scene more the gentle tone of a New Testament miracle, in better keeping with the atmosphere of the Grail Quest in Malory. Returning to the story of the conception of Arthur, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Layamon (with whom the story of Arthur's conception began) are ambivalent on whether Igraine was indeed faithful to Gorlois or secretly attracted to Uther (it is Gorlois who makes the resistance; on the other hand, the fact that Uther is disguised as her husband, to deceive her, suggests that she *is* a faithful wife). In Malory, as I've mentioned above, Igraine is definitely faithful, rejecting Uther when he tries to make her his mistress at court and immediately alerting her husband. Of course, even if Igraine is attracted to Uther after all, he's still adulterously desiring another man's wife (and that man one of his subjects, at that) and plunging the kingdom into civil war when it already has enough problems already.

One way to deal with Uther's bad behavior without endangering the player knights' honor - find ways of appealing to the nobles and the Church (ideally, getting a critical on Orate) to point out to them the danger of letting Uther do something like this - especially bringing the Church in, which can threaten him with excommunication if he does not back down and leave Gorlois and Igraine in peace. (And with two of the leading Christian prelates at the time being Dubricius and David, both saints, the Church's opposition ought to be taking place. It's one of the more artificial parts of the legend that it doesn't; modern retellings, which make Britain in Uther's day more pagan, with the Church lacking the authority that it would have had in Norman-Angevin times. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I suspect that Geoffrey of Monmouth couldn't afford to have such opposition to Uther's conduct - a tone of "Yes, it's tyrannical behavior and rape, but it's the closest I can get to making Arthur, the central king in my epic, a demi-god.")

Actually, in Malory, Pellinore never actually sits in the Siege Perilous, but in one of the seats nearby