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You don't need poison to kill someone with a syringe. You can inject an air bubble into their bloodstream. That's why doctors and nurses ans so careful to squeeze out a little medicine before administering the hypodermic. I think the cards could be to to represent some hidden knowledge about the subject on the card or provide soem sort of skill or skill bonus. For instance if someone draws the revolver they might have experience with it and raise their skill. If someone draws Col. Mustard, then they might have met him in the past and know something about him. You might even hold back a few of the character points to let the cards sort things out. This approach would work well with the idea of the characters starting with some form of amnesia, as the cards would literaly be clues to their own identity. Or if you wanted to run with a time limit the cards could be the next weapon, location and victim. Somebody could die every hour until the PC solve the case.

Oh you definitely got enough for an adventure. I think you'd need more for a campaign, although I think you do have enough to start a mystery campaign. The idea being that you could leave a lot of things for the characters to discover in play. More evil deviousness, but what if the PC all had no memory of their past lives and had to figure that out too, based upon the clues provided in the adventure? That would be rather stressful if there is a dead body. Somebody is probably a murder and it might even be you! The amnesia could be spell or drug induced and temporary, but should last long enough for the adventure. Imagine if you were sitting a table with a bunch of strangers, in fine clothing, and you just put down your glass of wine or Spring Water (Lethe Springs?) and suddenly the man at the end of the table drops his glass and keels over. He's dead and you...don't know who you are, who anybody else is, where you are, and why you are here! End evil deviousness. Oh, and how about the House is on a private island, or in some remote mountain location? That way the PCs can't leave and any phone lines could be knocked out somehow (a storm is an old reliable trope), and in the modern day the place is too remote for a cell phone signal. Oh, and if you are going to use the Clue Board then maybe you should find a way to recuse the cards? Maybe the could give bonuses to certain rolls. You're probably going to want more than just the logic puzzle/process of elimination game of Clue, but you could use the cards as clues in the RPG.

I decided to write an Halloween adventure for my group and came up with stats for the Irish Dullahan, the original headless horseman, and decided to post them in case someone else wants to do a Halloween adventure for Pendragon. It goes by a few different names, including one in Welsh that I can't find again. It gallops about the countryside at night and is a sort of Banshee/Grim Reaper type of creature. In game terms I see this either as window dressuing for another adventure, or as some sort of obstacleor guardian that the knights must get past. As it doesn't speak, social interaction is somewhat limited. Legends say that one haunts Silbury Hill, near Avebury, instead or or along with the ghost of King SIl. Later legends have it drive a coach of six black steeds, that uses skulls for lanterns which drives the departed tot he afterlife, but I figured that couches were a bit anachronistic for Pendragon, although some GMs might with to use it - faerie creatures do tend to be a few years ahead in the technology department. Anyway here are the stats. Please let me know if it needs any corrections, or changes. DULLAHAN The Dullahan. Also known as the Gan Ceann (“without a head”) and the Fear Dorcha (“dark man:”) is a headless rider, clad in black, astride a black horse, who carries his own head in one hand or upon the front of the saddle. This head is the color and texture of moldy cheese and is split from ear to ear by a wide grin. The Dullahan’s eyes are small and dart about quickly, allowing the creature to see even in the darkest of nights. The Dullahan’s head glows with an eerie phosphorescence, and the Dullhan can lift it to see as if it were a grisly lantern. It wields a whip, made from a human’s spine, with skill, able to pluck out an onlooker’s eye with it. The Dullhan’s mount is an all black courser, a tireless animal that shoots sparks and flames from its nostrils, that is said to be able to catch up with anything. Like the Banshee the Dullahan is thought by some to be a harbinger of death. A Dullahan will ride the countryside at night and when it stop it will speak a person's name (the only time it speaks), and that person will drop dead. The Dullahan does not like being seen while out on it’s ride, and might blind onlookers, either by striking out an eye with it’s whip, or by throwing a bucket of blood into the onlooker’s face. The Dallahan is an agent of death. Silently, it will ride through the night, and when it stops it will speak out someone’s name and they will die, and the Dullahan will lead their spirit to their afterlife. The Dullahan has a fear of gold, and can sometimes be driven off by the sight of golden objects, even ones as small as a pin. Glory Won: 150; SIZ 15, DEX 15, STR 15, CON 20; Move 3; Armor 6; Unconscious na; Major Wound 20; Knockdown 15; Hit Points 35; Healing Rate 4; Damage 5d6. Combat Skills: Spine Whip 21 (treat as flail, ignores shields and +1d6 vs. mail armor), Sword 16. Significant Skills: Awareness 20, Horsemanship 20, Hunting 20. Significant Traits: Valorous 17 Directed Traits: Fear Gold +10 (-10 Valorous) Valorous Modifier: -5 Spine Whip: The Dullahan wields a whip made from a human spine. This functions as a flail. The Dullahan is so skilled with this whip that it can use it to strike out a person’s eye. This requires an attack at a -10 modifier, and the Dullahan must score a major wound. This is normally done to those who stand and stare as the Dullahan rides by, and not in combat. Separated Head: The Dullahan carries it head in one hand, or upon the saddle-brow of it’s steed. The head glows like some sort of ghostly lantern, giving it a +5 modifier to Awareness. The Dullahan does not suffer any penalties for Darkness. Supernatural Sight: The Dullahan possesses supernatural sight, and when it holds it head aloft it can see for vast distances, even at night. It suffers no penalty to Combat Skills when fighting in darkness. Throw Blood: A Dullahan does not like to be seen when out riding and may throw a bucket of blood into the face of an onlooker, with a DEX roll, as if it were a throw weapon. If successful, the target is blinded for 1d6 rounds. Fear of Gold: A Dullahan is repelled by gold, and if it sees any gold, even as much as a single coin or pin, it must make a Valorous roll or retreat. Note that the Dullahan must be able to see the gold for this to occur. Gold that is carried in a knights purse wouldn’t repel the Dullahan, but a gold coin taken from that purse or a gold item worn would. To determine if the Dullahan spots some golden item worn or dropped by a character, roll Awareness modified by the situation. Dead Being: as the Dullahan is already dead, he cannot be "killed", but instead can be banished or laid to rest. As such it does not fall unconscious, and major wounds only result in maiming him further. If reduced to zero hit points or lower he is defeated, but will ride again on another night. To lay one ot rest permantly would take spirtual aid from a preist, or seprating the head from the body, perhaps both. BLACK STEED This is a large black horse of incredible speed that the Dullahan rides at a gallop through the night. It breathes out flames from it’s nostrils as it thunders through the night. Legends say that no one can outrun this steed. It is considered to be trained for both battle and hunt. SIZ 31, DEX 33, STR 29, CON 20; Move 13; Armor 10; Unconscious 13; Major Wound 20; Knockdown 31; Hit Points 51; Healing Rate 5; Damage 6d6 Combat Skills: Hoof 8 (–3d6), Trample 10 (–4d6; prone foes only). Significant Skills: Awareness 15. Tireless: The Black Steed can sprint all night without any signs of fatigue.

You know I think yours is the first post that actually mentions running the adventure. Congrats!

I don't have them now (I think I might have one or two). I haven;t had a floppy since 2012. But I copied my old files over to a PC years ago. The files were in AmiPro format, I believe, and while I couldn't open them up in MS Works or Word, I could open them up in Notepad or Wordpad. The files were messed up due to the special characters used for formatting the test, but readable and I could edit it to use my old Pendragon Notes and adventures. Some of the stuff, such as the timeline is a bit less useful since KAP5 came out, but most of it can be adapted with a little work. Most of the events are the same it's just the dates got shifted a little.

Thank you. I was starting to thing I was becoming delusional. Well more delusional than usual. I'm doing up a small Manor/Land Management sheet for my player. Something that combines the various sheets from the books into one sheet that covers just what they need to run one holding plus retinue. It seems that they forgot about the 2:1 conversion and saved up a tidy sum from the manor that was granted to their knightly order.

My players won't let me play Melniboeans anymore. 😵 One of the devious horror stories that people still talk about was the time when the platyers were holed up in a village being terrorized by a Vampire. People were "safe' Only becuase the Vampire hadn't gotten an invite tot he house the players were in. The Vamp had tried to influence somone to let him in but the players prevented that. This lead to something of a faceoff with one of the PCs taunting the Vampire from within the house. The vampire retorted. "Why do you come out here and say that!" The PC responded, "Why do you come...err, stay outside! " The players eyes widened in mid sentence when they realize just how close they came to being tricked into giving the vampire an invitation. That was evil deviousness.

Possibly. When dealing with differernt formats all sorts of things could happen. Have you tried opening it in notepad or wordpad? I was able to access some old Atari format files that way. I think we all agree that anything that adds to the body of knowledge on the setting helps.

I could have sworn there was a 2:1 ratio for converting manorial income into coin, and that otherwise the income couldn't be saved, but I cannot find it. Does it exist, and if so, does anybody know where?

Oh, so like the alternate place names used in some of the latter supplements? BTW, it might be possible to access a .iwa file on a PC by copying and renaming it as a .zip file and then extract it with a program that can uncompress ZIP files. If you want I can take a crack at it.

There is a map folio for sale at Chasoim's websight and DrivethruRPG. Could that be the finished version of the "Pendragon Atlas?" Are you looking for anything in particular? Quite few maps have appeared in various supplements.

What if it isn't a stupid human they need to fear but another monster? All the staff at the mansion could be monsters too. For isntance, imagine that Mr. Body had various monsters working for him , including some realy nasty ones, and he still winds up dead? If something is powerful enough to get to him, what chance to the PCs have? Think of Mr. Body as King Kong and the PKs as Bigfoot. A group of all Cryptids might work too. Maybe the PKs could be threaten with exposure and need to solve the murder before their cover is blown. Imagine if somebody had actual proof of the Mythos and was going to reveal it all to the public. Or maybe Mr. Body had control of something that the PK need, such as access to lots of wealth. Vampires don't keep Banker's hours. So if they want to buy a old mansion or something they'd need a middle man to do the legwork. The PKs would not only need to solve his murder, but retrieve his notebook/data to access their accounts (Swiss Bank Accounts?) so they don't loose millions. Note that if Mr. Body or someoneelse is ripping the PKs off of millions, they probably know what the Pks weaknesses are and would try to destroy the PKs. You could play with this with a couple of near (or not so near) misses that exploit the Pks weaknesses. Holy Water, Silver Bullets, Elder Signs. Along those lines, if all the PKs were vampires, you could put a Hall of Mirrors in the mansion, or maybe a Sun Room with tanning lights that actually hurt vampires. If the murder took place of Halloween you could have trick or treaters show up (and maybe use water pistol to squirt holy water on the PKs), and/or have the get together for the murder be a costume party Oh, and if you are going all Agatha Christie here you could have Mr. Body fake his own death for some reason, like say he wanted to keep the PK combined fortunes, so he faked his own death. Another take on the costume party would be if the murder were one of those "solve a muder" games that went horribly wrong. The hired servants/guards won't let any of the people inside leave until the murder has been solved, or time runs out, and they won't make exceptions even after the game turns real. If the Pks are humans then they would have until midnight, when everybody would unmask (and the PKs would be revealed to the monsters). If the PKs are monsters, say vampires, then they would need to get out and back to thier coffin by dawn, or before the fire-sprinklers come on (holy water). all the PKs were humans trying to solve the murder before midnight when everybody reveals themselves (and the monsters kill off the humans). The servants/guards won't let anybody leave before the murder has been solved. Just brainstorming some ideas there.

Just a stray thought: what if you made all the PCs monsters? That could really push things in the opposite direction. "Mr. Body" could also be a monster of some sort (probably something easy to kill like a ghoul, so all the options could still work).

They were also hostile a bit earlier. Vortigern and his sons were from Cambria. Vortigfern treated Cambria fairly well as did his sons, who drove out the Irish. Votimer even lead a semi-successful rebellion against the Saxons. So there is probably some bad blood between the families that supported Vortigern, and Ambrosius' line (i.e the Pendragons). Oh, and although the pregen character and equipment both seem to point to the adventure taking place in 535, it wouldn't be hard to adapt this for another date, by altering armor and Castle of the Kite and such to fit whatever Period the GM wants. King Cunneda was a contemporary of King Constatin, so the backstory could easily happen long before 480.

That;'s really the way to go about it. Generally I try to incorporate most things, but I don't feel constrained to use every change. I also try to gloss over any contradictory stuff or stuff that I don't have a good enough handle on to run properly. I suspect that is partly because of one of the major references for Pendagon, Geoffrey Mommoth's HRB. In it, the Archbishop of London is a major political factor and leads the delegation to Amorica to offer King Aldronius the crown, and who ultimately returns with Constatin. Archbishop Dubricus also seems to have a lot of clout during the Sword In the Srtone incident.So that would support a strong (Roman) church presence in the SG. That's probably due to historical reasons. British Christian was at least partially based on the teachings of the British monk Pelagius. Pelegianism was eventually condemned by the Roman Church but had a strong following, especially with some of the upper classes in Britain. In fact this is why St. Germancus came to Britain, twice. So it seems likely that the leader of British Christian also had some influence. In fact, one of the leaders who debated against Germanicus, Named Agricola, was the son of a (Roman)Bishop. So that could explain why they could have a presence on the SG-they have a higher standing with the British Knights than the Roman Church does. Now all that said (well, typed) there is no reason why you have to adhere to one list of another for your game, and I don't think it is really something you need to worry to much about, as few if any PKs will ever sit on the SG.

Maybe we strayed a bit too far from the topic?

I don't think that idea holds up to circumspection.

It's a neat idea but probably won't come across as intended in a Pendragon campaign. Imagine if you did have an older liege lord who was a bit batty and tilted at windmills (assuming you had windmills - in Pendragon, giants are actually more common!). In a comedy story it's funny./ In a serious RPG not so much. As the saying goes, it's all fun and games until somebody looses and eye, and in Pendragon that wouldn't take very long. Unless everybody in the setting is extremely accommodating to the old knight, despite his taking a whack at some of them, said old knight will probably wind up dead or captured, and his loyal players with him. So a lot of care must be taken to ensure that the adventure comes across as a comedy and that the game mechanics work to support that. By RAW the average attack with a weapon by an average combatant will inflict a major wound, and could lead of a prolonged recovery or even death. It would be like trying to run a four color comics Superman in a setting where the laws of physics actually apply. BTW, running this idea in Prince Valiant would probably work out fairly well. That RPG is more open both in tone and game mechanics towards that sort of idea.

That's a great idea. The key thing is that to work it has to be recognizable as a parody. If people don't know it is a parody then it comes across as an overly melodramatic story, that is overacted.

Yes, it was ans still in popular-that's why the story is still being retold today. The point of the story is that is that they are a parody about changing societal values and perhaps a bit of insanity.. So putting Don Quixote into Pendragon, where the chivalric virtues are aspired to by most knights, sort of negates most of it, or at least changes the emphasis.. It would be like bringing Austin Powers into an actual James Bond movie. It would no longer be a spoof of such films and instead just be about some nutty, comical spy. Instead of being about the changing values of the age it would be more like Mr. Magoo as a knight.

You add the inspiration bonus to the skill before dividing, this is true of most modifiers. The exception is something like a height bonus, which is applied for each opponent, as you might not have it against everyone you are fighting).

It might be worth noting that in Celtic Myths the Formorian Leader Balor lived on an island of glass . It also wouldn't be too much of a stretch for the ancient people to have discovered how to make Pykrete- it's a very low tech recipe, if you wanted a less magical/mystical explanation. That could let you run a lost continent sotry when the ice island melts into the oceans.

Ironically, I think Pendragon would be the wrong system for a Man of LaMacnha type of game. A good part of what makes the story is that Don Quixhote not only misunderstands the people and situations around him, but also approaches things is a impractical over chivalrous manner. Its like he is playing a dark and gritty medieval setting (like Harnmaster), but expects things to followed the idealized chivalry of Pendragon.

Yes, that definitely is part of it. In BoB you also have to make squire rolls to see if they can keep up with you during a battle, so an extra squire can often make the difference between getting a ransom or not.

Generally you have to defeat the foe, and then have a squire free who can take the prisoner from the field of battle back to your lines. Unless of course you want to do it yourself. That would limit the number of prisoners since a knight would either run out of squires, or he would miss a round or so getting to and from the battle.