King Pellinore

I understand that, as a welshman, it must be frustrating to see a national icon be taken away by the culture that threatened yours for so many centuries. But this game and their players aren't the one to be blamed. From an outsider perspective (some of my players barely get the difference between British and English) the "desaxonization" only helps to make things more confusing for game directors and players trying to access the chivalric sources or learn the geography of the UK. But I think there's some merit to your ideas. I don't think it would be bad in any way to add "it's celtic name is X" in the description of each place, if the celtic name exists and it's known. Same could be said about roman names, of course, and even english names if they're not the main one in Pendragon (Camelot being Winchester, for example). In the rest of the book a single specific name should be used, be it the modern form or the one used in Malory, to avoid confusion. But for god's sake please no more name changes like the ones in the book of the warlord! If there's a name let it stay the same until there's an edition change. No matter if it's celtic, saxon or swahili. Maybe there could be a supplement with everything needed to have a pendragon game more inspired on welsh tradition and less on the more internationalized chivalry romances. I know that I would buy it.

She is a great character and it would be nice to give her some spotlight again but Brastias makes more sense from Arthur's perspective (imho). Maybe they can be married to each other. This would make Brastias a sort of step-grandfather for the little count and I'm sure he's happy to have someone experienced at ruling Salisbury like Ellen by his side. Ellen is probably happy to have such an authority figure protecting her grandson. And since Arthur asked the first ward to marry the mother of the child it's sort of coherent that the new one needs to marry into the family too.

Brastias it is then, he will be perfect because most players already have or will have Loyalty (group) towards him (he was invited to symbolically join their brotherhood during the anarchy). I somehow interpreted his 523 quote as signaling the date for his actual retirement, but you're right that it's just Brastias grousing. In fact the man being preoccupied with Salisbury can provide an explanation to why Arthur sends Griflet and not Brastias against the angles. Brastias it is. Well the nullification process would've started before the execution, of course. I just figured that it's not the same to execute your vassal's wife than some saxon woman who wasn't really married to him as religious justice will soon prove. Arthur doesn't care much about Morgan being the wife of Uriens when he exiles Ywaine and makes her an enemy, but Morgan tried to kill him so it's a different situation (even without taking into account that they're half-brothers amd that she's a dangerous sorceress). An attempt to cancel the marriage would have been demanded by Guinevere I believe.

The saxon lady was sadly executed already (or at least that's what Arthur said...) along with the rest of hostages. As for the banneret, he won't get land and his wardship will be removed. It will be made clear why this is. I will also mention that he should refrain from going to Carlion or wherever the king is (Camelot doesn't exist yet!) unless it's to ask for forgiveness or to attend the mandatory round table meeting during Pentecost. His substitute will probably be a RTK or one of the princes without land that frequent Arthur’s court. Maybe Galegantis who will at some point receive Clarence but is landless now (if I'm correct). Maybe Brastias, he's liked by the players, but he's too old. Or some of the unnamed RTKs of Cameliard with a good relationship with the old warden, to make things easier when dealing with him and his supporters. Anyobody from Salisbury would not be a safe choice. Except maybe Ellen who is the grandmother of little count Roderick. Can a woman be warden?

Well, Salisbury does have enemies since they were pretty belligerent during the anarchy. Specially Dorset and Silchester have reasons to have grudges. Until now I tried to roleplay them as conciliatory (Arthur likes his vassals to get along) but both duke Ulfius and the roman pretor strike me as the kind of men who would use this opportunity to settle some grievances. I have to say that this isn't exactly the situation. His grip on Salisbury could be easily weakened but is strong now. The majority of powerful knights (both PK and NPK) have a good relationship with the merciful knight since he granted offices, castles or other gifts to everybody with enough land or glory. Remember Arthur explicitly wanted everybody to agree with this knight being the protector of the young earl, so the knight made sure this was the case when he still had loyalty 16 towards the high king. The knights of Salisbury just wanted their friend to not be a hothead, basically. They're almost all dead anyways. Badon is being a massacre for Salisbury and only the seneschal and the marshall (both NPK) remain as powerful or glorious knights apart from sir Merciful. They may die in the 4th day that we have not played yet, anyways. Of the PKs heirs (soon to be playing characters), one was squired by Sir Merciful and one is being squired by him right now. The remaining is the little brother of Sir Merciful's best friend (my players can quarrel sometimes but in the end they are teamplayers). Last, but not least, Sir Merciful was squired in Cameliard and is on good terms with king Leodegrance. Since Arthur has already allowed the knight to fight in Badon (to lead the forces of Salisbury, actually) due to metagame reasons, would you make Arthur to not grant lands in the saxon shore to the knight like he does with other Badon survivors? Or would it be more correct to give him land but also exile him or enact whatever other punishment (so actually the lands would be given to his heirs)? Also, apart from removing the wardship, what should Arthur do? Should he exile the knight? Seize his lands? Or removing wardship and a verbal reprimand are enough for a war hero that used to be a loyal knight? Apart from an unfounded half-accusation against Ulfius (caused by his high suspicious towards Silchester) this is the first time that this knight has angered the High King in his eight years career. In the first years of the Boy King Period this knight was so loyal that he decided to take responsibility for one of Arthur's bastards (he had also eloped with the mother too but not taken her virtue) which in hindsight should have revealed a deceitful nature but was also a "bro move" for teenager Arthur. I guess that the knight asking for pardon could ease things between lord and vassal? Disclaimer: This is a metagame thing but the player doesn't have an appropriate back-up knight his heir is 6 and he doesn't have brothers or any living adult male on the dynasty apart from himself. If possible, I would prefer to allow the player to continue playing with this knight (a redemption tale, maybe). His "back-up" is a sister who secretly dresses as a knight from time to time but, while she's fine for sporadic adventures, she's a bad main character.

Thanks Atgxtg and Morien, you bring some useful points. I reckon I haven't explained myself that well in the earlier post (english isn't my first language and I don't even use it much). Let me explain the chronology of events: 516 summer: Colgrim of the continental saxons attacks Malahaut, Arthur suffers an indecisive defeat in the battle of the Humber. This same night Colgrim attacks Arthur's camp, the saxons are defeated but the players are very unlucky today. Young count Robert and several of his knights die ("luckily", all the PK casualties were substitutes with little character development). Arthur besieges Eburacum and Count Rydychan is sent to lead an ambush against Colgrim's brother, Baldulf. The knights of Salisbury scream vengeance and worst things, due to high loyalty (Robert), hate (saxons), amor (Guinevere, remember she was in the attacked camp) or a dangerous combination of two or three of those. They're very happy when they stomp Baldulf and very angry when the assault on Eburacum fails. To exemplify how mad they were: at least one of them (maybe it was Merciful knight?) even wanted to fight against Cheldric, disregarding the dangers of being caught between two saxon armies. 516 winter: The PKs consider that Merciful Knight should be the warden for Robert's 3 years old son. Merciful Knight is a banneret, a RTK, he's chivalrous, he's religious (brittish christian), famous for his loyalty and son of a knight famous for his loyalty. It makes sense. The PK ask Arthur and he accepts with two conditions: Merciful Knight should marry the mother of the child; the knights of Salisbury must agree to the marriage and wardenship. We roleplay it all and Merciful Knight proves to also be Generous knight so the knights of Salisbury agree once all the knights with more glory (all other PK) accept him as warden of the count. 517 summer: Arthur defeats the continental Saxons in Lincoln and the Caledonian Forest. Colgrim and Cheldric agree to give hostages and swear that they will never return to Britain. Based on historical readings, I decide that the hostages ought to be mostly minors including girls. Being barbaric migrants the saxons (at least Colgrim's) ought to have come with their families, book of armies even provides stats for saxon women joining the fight. In my mind Arthur doesn't really consider the possibility of saxons breaking their oaths if the hostages are minors, he's no longer a boy but he is still young and a bit naive. 517 winter: In order to provide a bit of interesting roleplaying, each good vassal gets to look after one of the hostages (or more for dukes, kings, etc.). I roll randomly and Salisbury gets a 16 years old girl called Eadlin. In theory count Robert is on charge of watching her, but he's 3 so Merciful Knight decides it's his duty (makes sense to me). He brings her to one of his personal manors because he doesn't trust the other knights, who have hate saxons 16+ and associate young Eadlin with the murder of count Robert. Eadlin is proud 16, reckless 18 so she tries to escape several times. She's also honest 16, doesn't speak any British language and is a teenager so I hand-wave that she fails every time. Merciful Knight does nothing about all this, considering it cute, and becomes fond of Eadlin despite it not being mutual. This winter the mother of count Robert, wife of Merciful Knight, dies giving birth. Aelle prepares to invade. Colgrim and Cheldric will join him. 518 spring: Arthur asks for the hostages to be in Carlion in Easter or Pentecost (can't remember). With high Loyalty (Pendragon), Merciful Knight decides to obey for now. The GPC assumes Arthur hangs all the hostages but I obviously let Merciful knight to ask for mercy. He meets in private with Arthur, who says that it would be arbitrary to spare Eadlin but hang the other hostages. Merciful Knight is obviously fine with sparing all of them but Arthur can't do that just because a single knight just asked. Arthur promises to do what he can, he will consult all the Round Table. However, most knights and nobles believe that sparing the hostages would show Arthur as weak (and rightly so). Merciful Knight starts trying to gain support for sparing the hostages, and indeed a lot of other knights join him. However others are lobbying for the execution of the hostages (including two PKs who are also RTKs). Remember: everybody's mind is focused on the apocalyptic struggle with the saxons that will come soon. Merciful knight gets a bit aggresive at this point and isn't as polite as he should with Arthur or the other RTKs. Ironically this time the ones who keep a cold mind are he haters: they point out that both executing the hostages and not doing it would break an oath so Arthur should chose the one that is most benefical for Britain. Some add that saxons don't count for the RTKs oath anyways. Arthur in the end decides to execute the hostages, considering that being seen as weak by the saxons is the last thing he needs now before fighting Aelle. It is decided, hateful knights rejoice and the others begrudgingly accept the situation. Merciful knight then decides to lie and say he's married to Eadlin and Arthur can't execute the wife of a loyal vassal. At this point Arthur is a bit fed up and certainly not happy. He admonishes Merciful Knight for such an irresponsible decision, since for starters he doesn't have the approbation of her family and Arthur wasn't consulted. Angry, he claims that he can talk with the priest and annul the marriage. Being a british christian marriage, it shouldn't be that hard for the High King. The assembly is over, in part because Merciful Knight isn't succesful with his deceitful roll but Arthur isn't willing to call him a liar without investigating first. In part because we still need to play the first Badon battle today and battles can last a long time. I hand-wave that Arthur's men have enough time between Easter and Badon to discover that there was no marriage (or at least no priest, no witnesses). Merciful Knight isn't exactly an intriguer anyways and none of his allies in Salisbury is willing to help him with this lie (all have high hate saxons or respect the church too much). The hostages are executed to show the saxons that chivalry doesn't equal weakness. The player is fine with the resolution, but holds a grudge with Arthur. Which is bad for a RTK who used to have loyalty 16 (now 14). Conversely other PKs, specially the oldest one who is a pagan, are even more happy with Arthur now as they feared that the whole chivalry and niceness thing could sabotage Arthur's struggle against the saxons. I'll say Arthur handled the situation as best as he could but he will need to find the way to make peace with sir Merciful. The law I mentioned would be part of his attempts (probably to make peace with an angry Guinevere too). Specially since this knight has survived three days of Badon almost unscratched and will probably survive the 4th, so he will be well above 20.000 glory by 519. The only ones higher than him are probably luminaries like Pellinore. Even Gawain who is still young is probably lower. At least in Salisbury he will be by far the greatest knight since those who were "better" (more glorious) already met glorious deaths in Badon.

I don't know if that's a good idea because some of the knights are a bit too happy to ignore the feudal social pyramid (one in particular is very quick to confuse being clement or just with being modern) and I'm trying to portray the nuances of protecting the weak without considering the peasants as your equals or worthy of the same rights as a knight. I'm sure I can find a different atrocity for Arthur to prevent though. Maybe a cruel baron who wants to kill an adultress damsel? Of course, but what I meant was that I imagine Arthur as being more fair and conciliatory than his father. Where Uther was arbitrary because he was self-centered, Arthur is just because he's concerned about his subjects. I've tried to portray him as an understander and a listener, although in the end he does what he wants as he is the High King. I don't imagine king Uther listening to Tor's "father" Aries request of knighting a peasant for a second, for example. I will remember this when I explain the new law. One more question that I forgot to ask back then but could become relevant (and I don't think deserves a new topic): What would be the consequences for a Round Table Knight who lied to Arthur? Specifically one of the player knights claimed that he was married with one of the lady hostages and this prevented Arthur from executing her (for some reason). Why he decided to lie instead of actually marrying her? I don't know. The player probably didn't want to anger Arthur by marrying an hostage, since he has high loyalty, but stopped caring when he saw the saxon lady he liked was gonna die. Needless to say the wedding is an outright lie that he invented on the spot. Arthur has promised to try to annul the marriage and Kay (or whoever handles the issue) will discover the lie soon because ¡there aren't any marriage documents in any of the realm's church and there's no marriage to annul! Arthur ought to be hurt and enraged even before knowing the truth. A Round Table knight has been publically criticizing his policy, has not shown any empathy towards the difficulty that surrounds the decision and has married a saxon basically just to spite him. I don't know how he should react when he discovers that the knight has tried to deceive him. All that without taking into account that marriage is a sacred institution and the PK is supposed to be religious... On the other hand poor Arthur has learned his lesson and will write a law that prevents women and children from being valid war hostages in Logres, or something along those lines.

I think he's mostly concerned about not getting as much glory in battle as he did before. Since now he's criting almost every turn (75% percentage with most tactics, 100% in any tactic that gives him a +5 like withdraw), he basically has assured that he will always gain double glory in every large scale battle. Which is obviously broken but he doesn't seem to mind, the player enjoys having the same glory as knights who are 15 years older. Maybe I can convince him with this. He's the kind of person who dislikes relying on luck. The kind of guy who will get defensive (if he can't be inspired) against two enemies on foot even if this means they lose the battle round, because skill 20 against saxon infantry is too risky but skill 30 (dice+10) sounds safe enough.

Alas good young Robert died with his bodyguards in the night battle against Colgrim, after a series of unlucky rolls. Count Roderick II is three years old and not in a position to make any demands. His foster father is a PK who married the boy count's mother (but she died in the winter of 517...). The characters asked for it and the aforementioned PK is a round table knight, chivalrious and religious (and on very friendly terms with the deceased count). I didn't see Arthur rejecting, he just told them that they needed the permission of the knights of Salisbury. The aforementioned knight is thinking about abdicating this position and asking Arthur to give the regency to Ellen, the grandma of the toddler count. Maybe that's the solution. In our campaign the percentage of land held by the count's family is drastically lower than normal and I'm sure that old Ellen is willing to recover her grandson's lands once she's in power. Making some npcs who also have a lot of manors return some may be more than enough for players to step in and do the same.

¡What an excellent resource!

I spoke to my players and they were very receptive and understanding, in regard to only being able to be inspired by on passion at a time. This coming Sunday we're playing the last day of Badon and after that we will start the conquest period using the correct passion rules (plus other changes) mostly with new knights. You guys have all been very helpful. They were also very eager to try this house-rule... except for the remaining player with 30 sword skill (the other three super knights have not survived Badon). We will have to sit down and talk about it as a group.

Thanks for the kind and honest answers. I'll try to explain a few things. As for the amounts of lands they have, it all started with the heiresses which I gave away too easily (apparently it's a common mistake). But since the PK were doing stuff like retrieving Excalibur, capturing Octa, killing Gorlois, etc. it felt kinda egoistic to not give them good rewards. And they certainly felt like they should be rewarded. ¿What would have been a proper reward? Then in St Albans, from four players that are currently playing, three had their characters survive. Two didn't gain enough glory to be invited, one had a crit in temperate. So basically the characters were maybe more glorious than the GPC assumes instead of new made young characters and they unilaterally standed with the countess and Robert. And the GPC shows it like the countess more or less does what the players say unless they're absolutely crazy so they kinda controled the county as long as they stayed rational. Only old Amig and the countess were there to check them. When countess Rydychan came asking for help instead of seeing it like a group adventure they decided to send the county's army against Rydychan. Was countess Rydychan supposed to reject marrying one of the knights of Salisbury (and her daughter to count Robert) in exchange of an army when she's begging for a fistful of knights? Maybe I should have made Cedric attack them, but they had payed tribute. The whole viscount thing is a long story but I basically had them go to Spain to look for allies (as it's suggested in the GPC) when Brastias and Ulfius where going to Aquitaine. They decided to try to convince the Suebi of Galicia (because the visigoths are at war with the ostrogoths) and since it's a relatively irrelevant far away kingdom I introduced the classic knight tale of princess kidnapped by monster, knight saves princess and gets her hand. The husband of a princess can't be a simple vassal knight so he got a title and he proceeded to be an absentee lord since there's not much going on there anyways. Well they mostly do have knights. But the characters keep two or three for themselves to be able to have some spare coin (it has been very, very difficult to explain the mindset of the era about spending and hoarding and honestly I've given up a bit). For some reason they're as generous as I'm and normally give the manors to their vassals as either gifts or inheritances, never or almost never using household knights. Yes that I will do. It's not the first time this happens (but normally the errors are with the BoB) and they get always a bit mad if the mistake is something that, once corrected, goes against them. One has started to talk about it being "gm vs characters" (he's joking but it can be a bad sign) and the lethality of Pendragon doesn't help (although I like it and in theory so do they since they were warned and have stayed as a solid group for a year). I will probably make them choose if they want continue as it is or not because after all having fun is what matters, but I will make it clear that this year has been a learning experience and we made lots of mistakes in the process.

We have been playing he GPC for a year from 485 to 518 and we started to use the book of the manor since more or less the start of the Anarchy (and the book of battle but that's not relevant). At the time the book of the estate already existed, probably, but I had manor and used manor. After obtaining the book of the warlord and the book of the estate, I'm entertaining the idea to transition from the old to the new economic system. I have some questions for the most experienced players and gamemasters (this is my first time playing and gming pendragon). 1) How fair is gonna be for the characters? I've been very generous with them. And a player recently married the wife of good young count Robert (who died in the Humber) and was even more generous with his friends. Most hold good amounts of land: two are bannerets, another one has three manors (with two vassals) and the other has four mannors in Salisbury and is count Rydychan. The knight with three manors has castle Ebble and one of the bannerets has Tilshead which I misinterpreted as akin to a castle a long time ago (so now it's a castle because it was my mistake, not the players). Castles, towns and counties aren't managed, we assume that any income they provide is used for maintenance or reinvested (but I allow the count to demand everything a count would have, like good equipment, an appropriate lifstyle, etc.). The count's player retired the character when he achieved the honour but then he was obviously present during the battles of the anarchy so it was a fake retirement. Same with the son and current main Pk until his death in Badon, since he's a foolhardy youngster that would absolutely leave the country in the hands of older vassals to adventure and fight with his childhood friends from Salisbury. 2) Is it feasible to use warlords without ditching the old pendragon 5.2 hierarchy? That is vassal-banneret-baron-count-duke-pennath-king. Like many people in the forum (apparently) I'm not a fan of DMing spread-out noble domains and either way it's too late after 33 years of local counts. 3) How unwise would it be to use book of warlord for a player knight who is count Rydychan? He's the only "baron" (by BoW definition) except for another one who is an absentee lord with a viscounty in Galicia (Spain). Both characters died gloriously in Badon and both heirs are children, so it's not a pressing issue, but the former will be playing with a brother (uncle of the boy count) and will probably be the guardian and de facto count. The other is playing with the son of his first character and who, ironically, is technically the liege lord of the spanish viscount but otherwise is just a regular vassal knight. 4) How unwise would it be to not use the whole homage thing? I like conflicting loyalties and I have used them to roleplay (and presented it as a common thing in feudalism to the players, which is true). PK seemed to enjoy the drama it caused during the anarchy too when some accepted lands from Idres or Nanteleod but some didn't. 5) The whole issue about having to provide knights and infantry is new right? I honestly thought that a knight was able to hold 8 manors without having a single vassal or household knight if for some wild reason he desires to. As for the infantrymen I thought only counts and holders of castles were required to have them. Would it be wise to introduce all this as some kind of reform by Arthur or will it look arbitrary to do it when the saxons have just been defeated and peaceful times are to be expected? 6) Several of the players have been investing a lot of money into their manors and have a lot of improvements built, which together with the big tracks of land means they're very rich. If I'm correct this is gonna change if we start using Book of Estate. Most of them enjoy the management minigame and of course they enjoy being filthy rich. In fact they're actually under the impression that the BoM is harsh and that they don't have much money the years they can't get loot (mostly because they're unlucky when rolling in the destruction table). I'm afraid to make them disheartened with the change and make them perceive it like I'm punishing them. Do players lose a lot of economic power after transitioning from BoM to BoE? Is an actual transition even possible? Should I just wait for the next campaign (if there's one) to use the new system or are the problems with BoM too large to ignore? Sorry if I have beaten around the bush too much in some of the questions, I feel like there's a lot to explain. Looks like, since we're new and I made quite a lot of mistakes, we're playing Pendragon very differently from what's intended.

The same could be said about the battle of Donnington under the rain. I'm not British but according to the map Donnington is in fact closer to the fords than to Badon. But despite this you're probably right, of course , since BoA, after day "2" says: And then it becames evident in day 3 that the saxon kings will do a last stand with their wounded, which is what they do in GPC's day 4. Of course GPC has no mention of monsters and dragons (not even giants) but wacky tables are the whole point of BoA. BoA places the kings in day 2 (GPC 3) but I think that might be it's way to simulate, in a way, how in the original table it's relatively easy to encounter the enemy kings.

I tend to assume that every time britons see a "saxon army" coming from the continent they actually facing a whole migratory band. This is after all the age of migration. Not to mention that people marched to war with wifes and children all the time, historically (even Arthur does travel to war with Guinevere without realizing it's a foolish decision around this time). This My intentions were to present a relatively good intentioned and naive Arthur forced to take a harsh decision. I did expect it to be controversial but not to antagonize the Pendragon. They've been quite loyal to Arthur the point of refusing Nanteleod's approaches (at the start, not when invaded by Wessex and in need of allies) during the anarchy because he was not the wielder of Excalibur. I guess this makes sense, but after my previous slip I will need to make sure this isn't interpreted as authoritarian.

Not to mention that there's dragon people, giant hawks and witches that will easily be a threat during the third day (but I think in my campaign it will be 4th, I don't know why book of armies assumes 3 days when the GPC says 4). Even for knights that have 30 in sword and inspire themselves, specially if they waste their inspirations.

The Pendragon main book has the following passage where king Arthur, in imitation to William the Conqueror, abolishes capital punishment (among many other things). Now in William's version what it says is that people can't be executed but they can be mutilated and in fact this is his alternative to killing them. I understand that good king Arthur can't go around promoting castration and that abolishing death penalty sounds great but it presents two problems: 1) Executing anyone is already forbidden before Arthur, at least for everyone but the king (an a very few chosen to act in the name of the king). Is Arthur supposed to pay a fine in full to himself? 2) Regardless of who gets the fine's money, Arthur would be paying it quite often. Death penalty is mentioned several times. In fact Arthur sentences his own wife to die a more gruesome death than hanging and this is presented as painful but lawful. And I know that my players will call Arthur a liar if he bans death penalty but tries to execute Guinevere because they already got very mad at him for killing the saxon hostages (they believe it to be against the vows of the Round Table since I made some of the hostages to be female and/or young). 3) Honestly I cannot think about what punishments would be a good alternative, in a medieval setting. Are bandits supposed to pay a fine? The gruesome alternatives of William are out of question, of course. Should the whole fragment just be ignored?

It does make sense. It's just that I was late to realize the actual consequences (it didn't start to be unbearable until they all got 25+ sword) and they seemingly enjoyed their moments of invincibility (as that's the image that an inspired knight evokes). None of them is very familiar with Arthurian lore but they do know about Arthur (or any of his great knights) killing hundreds of enemies in a battle and want to be like Balin, the White Knight or Galegantis who all turn the tide of a battle (or almost) when they get inspired. But I will talk it with them, probably when we finish the Boy King period to make the change seem less abrupt. Badon will probably be less apocalyptic than it's portrayed to be but that's fine (I've buffed the enemies a bit as the GPC suggests for groups of Round Table PK anyways). Many thanks to everybody.

Thanks for the kind answers and for the useful links, specially that last one with Greg confirming the rule. We do use this and in fact it has proved to be one of the best "nerfs" to passions in battles, even when PK are allowed to use all the passions. In fact I'll say it's harsher in a way if they're allowed to use all the passions because they're likely to waste several of the highest ones. Speaking of this, what happens if a knight has 16+ in at least two unused passions and they're both triggered? Does he get a choose? Do I (the GM) pick the most adequate? That sounds very harsh, I thought it gave you a -5 for the same duration as the +10 if you succeeded (a scene normally, a round in battles). Yes in the end I ended up doing it like that and the PK accepted it (some with more difficulties than others). They still try to justify a lot of situations like "but this quest is very important for the Brotherhood of the Sword" or "how does Loyalty (Pendragon) not apply in such a decisive battle and after this rousing speech"? It has become sort of an internal joke to ask for love (family) because "if I die my children will be fatherless!". My players are good boys but also a bit too "smart" sometimes. Maybe they're still traumatized because one of them died in his first session during the battle of Mearcred Creek. But ironically the player is the one that seems less afraid of his PK dying now, and the one who started the trend of spending all the glory points in sword because "no, 28 is not enough to survive" is the one who wasn't even playing at the time. Is this common in new pendragon players? I don't think I've been specially harsh. Only six knights have died between 485 and 518 in a group of four or five players. One knight has been active from the first year of the anarchy to this day and everybody has survived all the countless battles of the Boy King Period. Edit: Now that I think about it, would a knight turned mad suffer social consequences for deserting (leaving for the woods while spouting crazy non-sense) or betraying his comrades (attacking another knight who is trying to cure them out of their state)? How aware are the PKs and NPKs of the effects of melancholy and madness and how prone to understand and forgive?

The thing is I can't find where it says so in the main book. I could just house rule it but they have made it into their main tactic and will probably get uppity if it comes out of nowhere.

This is the kind of thing that spices up a campaign. A trial for Gorlois like Cornelius suggests can be great if you take into account that the PK are gonna find themselves in a similar situation soon. I would try to paint Uther as enraged but relatively just here, since Gorlois is a traitor and PK should be taking the king's side even if they know the story behind the treason (if only because good Earl Roderick is loyal to Uther). And then in the second trial, their trial, Uther's madness and arbitrary nature become even more obvious than in a regular campaign.

Hello and, first of all, greetings to everybody in the community I consider myself to be a newbie pendragon player and game master and, even after playing the GPC from 485 to 518 (in the middle of Badon right now) I still make mistakes and misunderstand rules. So I'm sorry if the awnser to my questions is obvious. Here is the first one. Can the inspiration bonuses from passions stack? Can I inspire myself because my opponents are saxons (hate saxons), because I'm fighting for the king (loyalty Pendragon) and because I'm fighting with my friends (loyalty brotherhood)? My players love to do that and have even used it to inspire a skill from 5 or so to 25 or 35 with crits involved. Needless to say after surviving the wars against Lot and Colgrim (and in the case of one PK the whole anarchy) they all have tons of glory and combat skills that range from 25 to 30 so once they're inspired and on horse there's nothing threatening to throw at them specially since they will barter all the time to be able to use more than one passion. Am I missing something? Apart from the obvious downsides when failing the roll. As for the second question, what happens when a character goes mad during a battle? In skirmishes I just remove them from the scene but using the Book of Battles, where you explicitly can't get away without using specific tactics, this cannot happen in a battle (and it's logic and realistic of course). So do I just give them a - 10 like it happens with bodyguards? And what about melancholy? Is it triggered when the round ends or after the battle?