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There are many. Pretty much each culture had a language or three, with lots of regional differences. As much or as little as the GM desires.It's worth noting that in First Edition Pendragon there were Speak (Language) skills, but that they were dropped in latter editions for better play. Generally speaking, it might be realistic, but not much fun if the characters cannot communicate with each other. So for role-playing and story purposes, everyone is assumed to be able to communicate with everyone else to some degree.

Yup. Much like how Saxons presents the game from the Saxon point of view. Or you could focus on inter-tribal and inter-clan rivalries. Yeah, or just go with any old Irish myths and legends or medievval Irish ones. It's a rich campaign area. A GM could even go back and run a Mythic Ireland. But, I think the thing is, that much like with Saxons! and Land of the Giants, focusing or Ireland and things Irish generally comes at the expense of the Arthurian setting. GMs always have to decide just how much they are willing to divert from the mainstream campaign, and what the pros and cons are of doing so. I have an Irish adventure in the works where the PKs get shrunk down to mouse size by a leprechaun based off on a line in Pagan Shore, but figure the idea might be too fantastic/high fantasy for Pendragon. I might be able to get away with it after 532 during the time when the enchantment of Britian is strongest, but maybe not.

Wait until hey get raided and someone rides off with their treasure, spare armor, etc. The key point s that it takes a certain number of defenders to keep the full DV of the fortification.

I've used it for Pagan Knights who get fostered by a Caliieach. The PK gets some extra training but gets burned with the geas. As far as using Pagan Shore in general, the focus on knights has generally resulted in t his being used more for fringe characters, rather than being the central point of a campaign.

I haven't gotten to the latter periods with Book of the Estate yet, but I suspect I won't be increasing the manpower requirements-mostly because my players tend to do that naturally, without any encouragement. Most of the landed PKs in my campaigns seem to try to get to 5 defenders for the manor in order to get their maximum DV from the fortifications. So another man or t two appears to be a natural progression. And my PKs holdings have been relative raid free, baring a rivalry with a faerie knight over a bride. I suspect they would have the biggest army they could afford, if they were getting raided more frequently.

The third footman goes to the liege lord or the king (I forgot whom), and isn't at the manor. I ignored him to try and avoid confusing the issue, thereby confusing the issue.

Well the original idea was for the arms to be easily recognizable, as the knight in armor wasn't. That how the original rules of metals and colors came about, and even today sports teams use similar rules for their uniforms top give them contrast and make them more readable. The coats of arms tended to start out simple and got progressively more complicated as more things were "taken" over time, and as knights wanted to show off family ties to other noble families.

It depends a lot on how how up the social ladder the land holder is. For a knight, there is a lot of leeway for all these roles. For a nobleman there is both more income and m ore status to consider and it becomes less likely that a commoner would fill any of the positions.

THey would have two manors, each of which would provide about 10 income and require 9 upkeep. The major differences would usually be with their army. Each manor should provide 1 knight and 2 footmen to the PKs army (hence why they will need to hire another knight for thier army), so the net effect is that the PK would have another librum to spend, and a couple more footmen, and earn another 10 glory per year. Generally by either taking on existing knights of knighting men themselves, and giving or granting them land.. The latter option is frowned upon, more and more as time goes by, both because it steps on the privileges of the greater nobles, and because it's bad form to create knights you cannot maintain. The first option is easy enough though, the PK just needs to find a knight who is free to swear fealty and homage to the PK. Generally it is rare because the PK would have to give or worse, grant, a manor to the other knight to make him a vassal. Few knights are going to want to loose a manor to make a vassal knight, and would instead probably prefer to make a household knight., since they don't normally have manors to spare. It can occasionally happen after years on loyal service, and/or when he vassal provides some special benefits to make them worth it to the PK.

Not to mention the fact that early British Christianity was more heavily influenced by Celtic beliefs and Pelegianism.

Well first off this might be worth getting land, but are you sure you want it to come directly from Uther? Doing so makes the PKs direct vassals of Uther, and would sort of override their obligation to Count Salisbury.You might not want that. Then again you might. A good benchmark for if this is worth land or not is how much glory the PKs racked up during the battle, as they shows how they did overall as opposed to just thier final act. Next is that the action might not be worth elevating everyone. It seems more likely that the unit leader might get promoted but the remaining PKs would get one off rewards, such as armor, horses, fine weapons, treasure and so on. Lan d it a big deal, and for any nobleman to hand about half dozen manors or so is a huge deal, especially when they can only give out about 20% of their total manors, and most of those have probably already been given away to knights. Uther giving all the PKs manors greatly restricts thew number of manors he has available to reward knights in the future. It's much m ore prudent for him to give one knight a manor and spend a hundred libra to so rewarding everyone else. Another option would be for their own liege lord (Count Salisbury) to award on e or more of the PKs manors, perhaps at Uther's urging. This is similar to above, and leaves open the possible of Uther adding in additional rewards, if he wants to. But the Count also would be hesitant of giving out a half dozen manors at once. My suggestion would be for one PK, either the Unit Leader the PK who did the best/most in the battle, to get landed for the capture of the Saxon King, and the other get one off rewards. Then, you could work on marriages and other situations where the remaining PKs could get manors of their own. Especially if the wars have left lots of widows.

Some of this depends on the size of the estate. For instance at a typical manor the steward is a commoner, or non-knight noble, such as a younger brother. But with the larger estate of a nobleman the steward would be a knight (or better).

I wouldn't mind taking a stat as vehicle and ship stats. I kinda did the groundwork for that years ago for WEG's D6 system and a lot of it would port over easily enough to BRP.

It sounds it, right down to the timing of the critical spear throw. Sure there is. A high skill means you win more often and don't take as much damage, as well as tending to break weapons a little more often. Plus the red blade is going to be doing 6 points through armor, so the inability to crit isn't so bad. The thing to watch out for will be with h ow the PK improves or how the player draws up his son. A high SIZ, high STR character who does 6d6 or more really doesn't need to critical.

Yeah, that seems to make more sense to me too, as the dogs should be distracting the riders and bothering their mounts, not really helping their masters.I could even see a -5 to weapon and horsemanship rolls, since I think the wolfhounds would try to pull down a rider who is unsteady in his saddle. Not really. Most of the Irish units are foot units, so they will usually suffer the -5/+5 foots vs. horse modifier. So the +5 helps to offset that. There is only one mounted unit, two units wielding great spears, and the "chanting, shield banging warriors" who could get over 20. BTW, thanks Tizun Thane and Morien

That's the thing. Unlike in D&D the PCs never really become powerful enough to "take it". THat is one of the primary differences between the game systems.In D&D high level characters have a lot of hit points and can take a critical hit or two. In BRP hit points generally don't increase much if at all, and a critical hit is still likely to drop or kill them, especially from missile weapons and/or impaling weapons. You can test this out with a mock fight, where you have two archers at 60-75% skill shoot at each PC. THe odds are pretty good that a PC will drop in the first couple of rounds, especially if the PCs are caught unprepared. That's why ambushes are so deadly.

Plus things change over time, as Greg "discovered" new things about Glorantha.

The Irish Wolfhounds on page 48 of Book of Armies does the following: Now the +5 modifier seems clear enough but the Horsemanship roll less so. Does that mean the riders don't get to fight if they fail the roll. or the dogs don't provide the +5 if the riders make the roll or what? Anyone know?

Yes, historically fertility was considered a female trait in the real world, and seems to be so in Glorantha as well. So a king marrying the Earth Goddess is forming a productive tie to the land that should result in a productive land and a good reign. In theory. Conversely, not forming a tie with the land means blight, famine and other bad things. There is only so much a ruler can do without food to feed his people.

I agree. It looks more patriarchal because RPGers have been predominately male over the years, and have predominately played male characters. When you got half a dozen men and maybe one or two women in a group, it makes it look patriarchal. Ernalda is very important and tied not only to fertility, but also seems to be tied to sovereignty. It seems that every male ruler deity has to marry some aspect of Ernalda to legitimize his claim to rule.

No it won't break anything. Play at high skill levels is fine. The only worries tend to be the increased chances of NPCs getting a lucky critical and some fights where it can take time to get past each other's defenses.

The do, indirectly, because they are more powerful, have better stats and are more skilled. But, on the other hand, that typically means their opponents are tougher and more skilled too, so it might actually get harder on the players! Cricals and specials in BRP can take down most experienced characters, and there often isn't much a player can do if some NPC gets a lucky critical hit and does a dozen points through armor to a vital location. That's the kind of thing that might even drop an elephant.

Ah well, we can't agree on everything. Which is also why a +1 and +2 would not seem like a big deal to me. It would reduce a 1.25% chance of death to 1%, to 0.75%. That's not a bad idea. Probably worth a +1 or so modifier. Medieval medicine is a mixed bag, it probably helps sometimes and hurts others. But Pendragon medicine should be a bit better, since there is still a Roman influence and Roman medicine was pretty good. Possible but not all that common in my campaign, or most other's I'd assume. Although one PK did get a Bulla amulet in Rome for his son that grants a +1 to the survival rolls. It was a gift from General Aetius and actually worked, as opposed to most of the ones sold on the street. Still back to the feasts... Putting some of our various ideas together into some sort of format: Knights and ladies could be seated mostly according to their glory "band": Unproven Knights sit with Unproven Knights, Notable Knights with Notable Knights, Famous Knight with Famous Knights and so on. The APP/Bling roll could bump a character up or down a group, two groups with a critical or fumble(i.e Notable up to Renowned and Famous, or down to Respected an Unproven. A Famous Knight with 10,000 Glory is only going to be bumped down so far-unless he isn't recognized for some reason. Cards will be drawn one at a time. A character can either play the card drawn, or redraw and take the new card, up to a limit of APP/6 cards. I wonder should play proceed according to seating, glory, APP, or geniality? I also wonder if perhaps the 1 point geniality awards for winning one of the "skill contests" could instead by tied to the opponent's glory, as with tournaments? So beating a Legendary Knight at chess might be worth more than just beating some unproven knight?

It's probably also something of a default for the RPG community, at least back when RuneQuest was first created. Something of a case of providing for the audience. As there is only X amount of space in any given book, the majoirty of it is probably best oriented to the majority of the players when possible. As more female RPGers appeared we started to see more female oriented cults in the supplments. Should there every be parity, I suspect we'd see it be more of a 50-50 split.

Most faiths have people who a re not priests who do things for the church/temple. I just used those as examples. The actual roles filled would vary depending on the cult. THere ar probably initiates who clean the temple, doing maintenance and so on.