jeffjerwin

Ladies frequently introduce quests and lead knights on adventures: look at The Tale of Gareth and The Triple Quest. This is a canon aspect of the stories that isn't reflected in the existing adventures. I suggest making the lady not just a heiress, but a dispossessed heiress (like of Rydychan in the GPC). They can plan the recovery of their own lands, and potentially get involved in intrigues, scouting the lost castles, and seeking out still-loyal retainers. To make a Lady work you have to give them an equal importance to the knights, which means making them have goals beyond 'a good marriage' and 'getting in Guinevere's good graces'. The other option is to make them a handmaiden of Guinevere or servant of the Lady of the Lake, and entrust them with delivering messages for them (through dangerous territory). This is also a canon albeit obscure part of the legend. Finally, the queen herself takes an interest in justice (as the embodiment of royal mercy) and therefore might have need of eyes and ears to find and solve problems on her behalf. These would frequently be in the interests of women, minor children, and commoners oppressed by (male) lords.

Buellt is the Welsh and Builth is the English name of this place; Bulith is a typo. I don't know how it became part of KAP.

I suspect it places his birthplace near the Print in Heortland.

In the Story of Merlin, part of the Vulgate (also known as the Lancelot-Grail) Vortigern says he is willing to become king if Maine (that text's name for Constans) dies, but he cannot himself countenance murder. So twelve of his supporters, understanding the hint, kill him on their own initiative. It's clearly a reference to Henry II and Becket.

The border of Cambenet in Perilous Forest is roughly the modern eastern boundary of Cumbria. yes. It's only $8 for the pdf from Chaosium, however... (The political map is separate from the terrain map in that book. I really recommend just getting the pdf).

This is correct. Carlisle is its capital and Cambenet straddles the Wall.

No. In 1E it drowned early in the campaign, before Arthur became king. Welsh stories have Taliessin in the 540s (before 547) as the foster son of Gwyddno's son Elffin, but Elffin is living in what KAP calls Gomeret, suggesting it happened before then.

The Cymric form of Nuada is Nudd. Nudd is sometimes also called Lludd, and was the brother, in the Mabinogi, of Caswallawn, the man who fought Julius Caesar...!

Of course, one could also link it to the Alans, to which it has also been connected... I like the idea of there not being a canon in the game for its origins.

In Perceforest, the British take the sword of Crocea More and make it into needles, which are later incorporated into the styluses (as was thought in the Middle Ages) used to stab Caesar in the forum.

1. That's a deviation between the GPC and Malory. There are a number of them in the Downfall. Benwick and Ganis have been independent of the French since 536-7 so there's an inconsistency here in the campaign; no reason is given for the French king recovering these lands, which had been usurped from Lancelot's father and uncle. Certainly Brittany, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou are vassals of Arthur in the Lancelot-Grail, chronicles, and Malory, and owe no fealty to the French king (the model is obviously the Angevin Empire, though without the problem of being held from France). Moreover Lancelot's cousins are inserted in several sources as ancestors of Charlemagne (the Merovingians being ignored). 2. These maps are misleading. The petty kingdom of Lyonesse is a vassal of the King at Totnes/Cornwall. Check out the map on p.88 in Book of Sires for a clearer representation.

I'd recommend getting out your Malory, as in some cases there is more detail than the GPC. 1. I'd put Cameliard in a different shade of the same color as Logres, I think. (I'd do the same for Joyeuse Garde) 2. Tristram defeats characters identified in several verse romances with the Counts of Nantes and Rennes in almost all versions of his story (it's Earl Grip in Malory). They were warring against Duke Hoel. Tristram does this prior to wedding Isolde of the White Hands.This is in 536-7. 3. The list of realms parceled out by Lancelot are in Malory and are essentially most of western France, excluding the land of King Guntram (Merovingian Burgundy) and King Sigisbert (Austrasia). 4. Lancelot has a considerable fief in as much as it's a half day's ride from the river and hermitage that marks its boundary to the castle itself in the Vulgate, which comes across as huge. 5. People ride from Cornwall to Lyonesse, so your interpretation may encounter some issues. Most of the places mentioned in the Prose Tristan and the few places put there in Malory correspond to real places in Penwith.

'Lancashire' exists and is in the hands of Gareth by this date. Cameliard is independent of Logres. Guinevere rules it on her own, through stewards. Nantes is in the hands of the Duke of Brittany (Tristram killed its ruler for him). Surluse is a separate kingdom from Gorre. You may want to note the realms granted by Lancelot to his followers in the Downfall in the 560s, as these were former parts of Arthur's empire, taken during the war against Claudas in the 530s. Joyeuse Garde seems to be separate from Garloth as Lancelot's personal domain. It's southern Northumberland. Also you have Lyonesse missing.

Would it be fair to have Holaya 'recognized' as Redalda by the remnants of the proto-Tarshites in this area, they having lost their identity, in a profound sense, from the EWF? I don't see what is later Holay as empty, and of course Arim is an Orlanthi. The Tarshites are Alakorings, I think. If so there may be a union between Holaya's tribe and the remains of that group. This re-encounter triggers the reawakening of long gone wyters, perhaps...

Yes, and it's good that you do so. KAP sits astride both the 'real' (roleplaying with modern humans) and the the literary (myth, really). Mordred's a problem.

So she was still a child when she became Queen Holaya?

This story takes place in the 940s? Of course the ghost/wyter of Re[y]dalda could have joined with Holaya's people and helped them when they entered Saird.

Mordred is supposed to be an object lesson for why these things are bad. You're thinking of him as a modern fictional character, rather than a symbolic figure from a legend. Incest is a major preoccupation of religious writers and storytellers at the time (as the most outrageous of iniquities that pagans and evil kings did - compare Vortigern and Maelgwn), and the consanguinity rules are consistently justified because they were a part of ecclesiastical power, but they also reinforce norms against exposure of infants. There's also a whole cohort of folkloric kings who wish to imprison and molest their daughters or who marry their mothers. But these are also things that happen in reality, so in a way it's still acceptable to have the symbolic Mordred and combine him with a perverse modern interpretation.

In the Morte (the French source Malory relied on for part of the ending) Mordred and his brothers hate Lancelot with a passion. By 'taking possession' of his lover (and thus subjecting her to legal violence) he humiliates Lancelot further (and Arthur, but that's secondary). Mordred could have thought his father was dead already, I suppose, and realized that Lancelot would be his main threat in his father's absence, but by forcing Guinevere to marry him Lancelot would be forced to come to Britain and fight a war against Mordred at a disadvantage.

Yep. Of course if Mordred is motivated by the desire to 'be' and 'best' his father at the same time the Oedipal thing might be driving him.

Ok, so Reladiva = original Sairdite land goddess Reladivus = Dara Happan regendering of Reladiva as city god of Nivorah What about this one: Erladivus. He's the son of Jakragriand/Shargash in Heortling myth, who was beheaded by Vinga. We can ignore the link to Shargash, because that god is mythically identified with Solar hostility and the death of Umath, hence the vendetta theme might be introduced rather than original. The Er- Re- prefix are pretty much variants of each other, i.e., *Erladiva = Ernalda. Now Redalda is the red-headed goddess of horses, and manifested as Reydalda the red-headed daughter of Vingkot. In the Erladivus legend, Orlanth changed his gender to Vinga to fight him because he had the boon of being defeated by no man. But from the 'When Vinga Got Pregnant' legend we know that Erladivus as Vinga's enemy is separate from Vinga as a form of Orlanth (and is probably told without that detail): Vinga is a Thunder Brother and like the others is a part of Orlanth as well as a separate entity. There is zero mention of Vinga in Six Ages, though she shares the Ving- prefix of Vingkot. What's weird about this: first, the city god of Elempur would be expected to be the one beheaded, not Erladivus/Reladivus. Second, if *Erladiv[us] is a consort-figure to rule over the land-goddess, is this a retelling of Orlanth versus the Bad Emperor? Except, as with the Pelandan myth, the red-headed daughter kills her own father in revenge for his subjugation of her mother? I don't know. It does strike me that as with other red-headed rebellious women, the authority of the Emperor might not be very secure over the Queen of Holay. Also, one more bit of 'etymology' Holay is a near anagram and possible descendant word from Hyalo[r]. Is Holay simply a Holayan/Tarshite word for Hyalor? Is this why 'Queen Holay' refounded the Redalda cult? Did it develop synthetically in order to amass legitimacy from the Dara Happan successor state of Verenmar's Saird?

I think it may be related to one or all of the following: Bijiif or Karzkurtum (which I think is related to Zorak Zoran), and Basko (the last may be canon). Basko interrupts in a ritual manner the Ten Tests.

Gwenhwyfach (who corresponds to the False Guinevere) is Mordred's wife in Welsh accounts, and according to the Triads, engineered the downfall of her sister and Mordred's usurpation. She's depicted clearly as a villain.

Just suggesting that framing it a sequel might work. My main complaint about Paladin is that it's too accurate to the source material, i.e., the ethos of the early chansons: and yet not to Orlando Furioso: neither ladies, nor Britomart-like female knights, nor Saracen heroes like Rainouart or Ruggiero are really doable as player characters - these are the fun bits to me, the late stuff. Also many of my players are women.

Several places in the prose romances (I think in the Lancelot-Grail and the prose Tristan) Charlemagne is stated to be a direct descendant of the 'lineage de Benoic'. It appears his male-line ancestor Bodogisil was equated with Bors de Ganis. So in that sense, the French thought of the Carolingian romances as sequels.