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The classic description of the Hero's Journey or Monomyth is this one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

This should not be too difficult. If I understand it right, the Lordship of the Isles was a vassal state of Norway during the 13th century, and the people of the Lordship of the Isles were of mixed Gaelic and Norse descent, so the Scandinavians could be depicted as not interfering much with their relatives' sea trade. The Hanseatic League, on the other hand, could well come to dislike their trade on the North Atlantic, a nice potential source for a maritime conflict endangering Thule's sea trade routes, especially as the Hanseatic League always had a tendency to start wars with its Scandinavian neighbours. Another major advantage of Gaelic traders on the North Atlantic would be that they could re- place the rather unhistorical Portuguese explorers I wrote into the early part of the setting, a point I always disliked without seeing a convincing alternative.

I have no problem with this if the hero has to earn this something during the campaign, or if it is balanced by something like for example a specific geas connected with a magic item, but I would hesitate to give out lots of powers, spells and items during character creation. There is also the problem of "power creep" for the adventures, because very powerful charac- ters also need very powerful opponents, and the more powerful the characters become during the campaign, the more this spirals into realms where only deities can still provide a challenge for the heroes. It is doubtless a matter of taste, but I prefer to begin a character's "hero's journey" at the be- ginning, when he still is heroic because he voluntarily takes significant risks, and not nearer to the end, when there is not much left that could endanger him.

Thank you very much, Pachristian, I will take a look at these books.

As far as I understand it, rare and wondrous magic seems to fit the feel of the literature better than a setting where everyone and his brother and sister can cast spells and carry magic items. Besides, omnipresent magic could "devalue" the magical abilities of the inhabitants of the Otherworld as well as the stature of the legendary magic users like Taliesin, whose deeds would become much less impressive if so many other people could have done the same.

Yes, this seems very plausible. Anyway, I am glad that there were at least some Gaelic ships on the North Atlantic in the 13th century, this adds a number of interesting options to the set- ting - although I obviously have to do some more research on the Lordship of the Isles and its society and culture to understand what exactly these options could be ...

That much about an undisturbed life in lonely colonies on remote islands ...

Thank you for the interesting map. The regions in central Scotland with their names in light brown (e.g. Fortriu) are Pictish ?

Thank you very much for this, it reminded me of what I had missed, because "between the two islands" was the Lordship of the Isles, and this is the region I should have researched. Now on the right track, I found some very interesting informations, and they even fit very well into my setting. To quote Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birlinn

I suspect this is a bit too far in time from my usual "playgrounds", so I would not be able to contribute anything useful. However, I would very much like to see this project develop.

While working on my Thule setting, I ran into a problem which my "Google Fu" seems unable to solve: There seem to be no Irish or Scottish seafarers in the Middle Ages. Both Ireland and Scotland are "neighbours" of my setting's Thule (= Greenland), and so some encounters with ships from these lands and perhaps also some sea trade seem likely and also would add some more "colour" to the setting. However, despite the apparent Irish seafaring tradition of the "Dark Ages" (St. Brendan, Irish monks on Iceland, etc.) and the very obvious Scottish seafaring tradition of the early modern age, I was unable to find any mention of Irish or Scottish seafarers during the Middle Ages, especially the 13th century. Perhaps someone could tell me whether I only managed to miss such informations (and where to look for it), or whether there really were no Irish or Scottish ships, for example whalers, on the North Atlantic during this period ? Thank you very much for any help.

Yes, I see the problem. One such "enemy" could be the harsh environment of Thule combined with the small size of the colony, forcing knights and peasants to work together to survive. And I am also working on some aggressive natives who are likely to attack the foreigners whenever there is an opportunity to do so, giving the knights an appreciated role as protectors of the pea- sants. And finally there is the option to fill up the ranks of the knights with those peasants who did something outstanding for the colony, creating a small but steadily growing "middle class" of Baltic knights (and enabling the players to choose one of the newly created Baltic knights as a player character to "experience the other side").

Well, lets put it this way: One of the most feared rapier fencers of France's 17th century was Julie le Maupin, a slender woman who was often mistaken for a boy - she once won a serious fight against three men at the same time ...

Thank you very much. Since fantasy is not really my field, I have no useful opinion on which system would be best for the scenario and supplement you envision. My only idea for this would be to take a look at the magic system of the Fourth Edition of Pen- dragon (I do not know the later editions), because I have the impression that it captures the feel of the Celtic literature quite well and could therefore provide some ideas for Celtic magic for other systems, too. I also like it because in my view it is less "mechanical" than most of the other magic systems ("Press Button A for Result X"), more open and unpredictable.

Let me see ... Your king and his only son are dying of the Yellow Plague of Rhos, and once they are dead and their royal line has ended, the king of a neighbouring realm will invade and subjugate your ho- meland. The only man who ever was able to heal the Yellow Plague has died many years ago, and he was buried together with the fairy chalice that enabled him to brew the potion that healed the plague. You could steal the chalice from his mound, but you would not know how to use it and what ingredients are needed for the potion. You have to go to Annwn to ask the dead healer, but the only way there is through a henge on the lands of the neighbouring king, who will do whatever he can to prevent your success, with means fair and foul, including magic. If you manage to reach Annwn, the Lord of the Underworld will only allow you to speak with the dead healer if you and your companions win a series of challenges against his servants, from bardic tale to duel combat - one challenge for each member of the group. Should you and your companions win the majority of the challenges, the healer will agree to tell you what you need to know, and where to find the ingredients for the potion. Now all you have to do is to return through the henge, where the enemy king's best warriors are already waiting to kill you ...

If you prefer a more gritty game, hit locations would be fine, but if you aim for a more heroic- cinematic game, total hit points might fit better. It is a matter of taste, I usually prefer total hit points, in my view they make the game a bit more "rules light" and fast and the characters a bit less vulnerable - however, they also make combat more simplistic, and do not go well hand in hand with a detailed combat system with many tactical options and thelike.

This is my view, too. I think that someone named Arthur - more likely a nickname "Bear" than a real name - lived somewhen between 450 BC and 550 BC in Wales, most likely in northern Wales, and that this person became well known (if not proverbial - "like Arthur") as a good warrior, perhaps a good leader of warriors. Later on many stories were "retconned" and connected with this Arthur, "like Arthur" became "in Arthur's time", "among Arthur's men" and "at Arthur's court", and real or legendary people from other sources were connected with the now legendary Arthur, who steadily increased in stature and importance and "assimilated" more and more real history and legends. In the high and late Middle Ages, when the idea of chivalry was developed, Arthur became the "perfect Christian knightly king", and the many old and new and widely differing stories about and around him were finally interconnected and "canonized" into Mallory's Arthur, now more a romantic figure than a Welsh warrior - the Pendragon Arthur, with few traces of the post-Ro- man Welsh warrior left. If I had to bet who the model for "the real Arthur" could have been, I would most probably put my money on Owain Dangwyn or someone very close to him in time and place - in my view just the right time and place. However, I would very much hesitate to make this bet, because all that is just what I consider most plausible, and history does not always follow the concept of highest plausibility, so it could just as well have been completely different.

It depends on what you consider as "later". It is a bit suspicious that the previously very uncom- mon name "Arthur" suddenly became rather fashionable in the Celtic regions around 600 AD, while there is no earlier trace of any old Celtic deity with that or a similar name. In any case, Arthur was a well established figure long before Mallory. I remember visiting the Norman cathedral in Otranto in Apulia in southern Italy, which has a truly fascinating mosaic floor that depicts hundreds of stories. This mosaic was created in 1163 AD, and Arthur figures very prominently in it - hundreds of years before and hundreds of miles away from Mallory.

I thought of this because Gildas called another person of the time "You Bear", the Welsh king (?) Cynlas Goch.

This may be true, my only personal experience is indeed with fencing weapons.

And another option: Gildas was aware or assumed that Artus, "The Bear", was a nickname of a person, and did not know the real name ...

True, but one usually aims at a location that has been made possible by the development of the ongoing combat, for example because of an opening in the opponents's defence. One can aim at the head whenever such an opportunity presents itself, and there are ways to create such opportunities for specific hit locations (feints and thelike), but it is extremely difficult to hit such a location at any other moment of the combat. In other words: The swordsman can say "I will aim for the head at the first chance to do so" and succeed, but he will rarely succeed with the plan "I will aim at the head with my next strike".

Well, Gildas mentions the Battle of Mount Baden, which the Historia Brittonum mentions as one of Arthur's battles, but Gildas does not give the name of the military leader who commanded the British forces in that battle. However, these forces doubtless had a leader, and since Gildas does not provide any other name of that commander, it could just as well have been Arthur.

Because you titled the thread "Age of Arthur BRP" ? Seriously, while this is still not my preferred historical period, I could well imagine to play at least a short campaign in it, for example dealing with the post-Roman culture in northern Wa- les, where a kind of Roman civilization continued to exist even after the Roman Empire had fallen.

Thank you very much for the informations. This made me think of the computer game Europa Universalis. It has an event named "Culture Shift", where the foreign ruling class of a country (for example Hospitallers on Malta) adopts the culture of their subjects. Perhaps I should make the possibility of such a culture shift from the knights' German culture towards a mixed German-Baltic or even predominantly Baltic culture a part of my campaign.