jeffjerwin

Camden is identifying the site with Catbrain Hill, but his etymology is extremely shaky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catbrain

The Cath Palug in Welsh legend is associated with the Menai Straits (and even appears there in an adventure in Savage Mountains!).

Which is interesting in terms of the story in Geoffrey of Monmouth. In the French Vulgate Arthur fights it at Lausanne, en route to Rome, and in GoM he's fighting 'Lucius Hibernius'... I wonder if the Welsh sources had a king of Ireland as Arthur's foe before Camlann rather than a Roman Emperor. Meeting the Cath Palug at Menai would make sense for that route.

There's a giant (house) cat that in some stories is said to have eaten King Arthur: https://www.medievalists.net/2019/03/the-kitten-that-nearly-killed-king-arthur/.

The Alans, who came to influence Breton (and chivalric) culture had a huge dog called the Alaunt, which they doted on.

And Welsh (and apparently Irish) society valued cats very highly, mainly as mousers (unlike mainland Europe). Cats even had a ransom/blood price in the Laws of Hywel dda.

6 minutes ago, stryker99 said:

However, my questions on Malahaut still stand: Are the Centurion King's subjects a culturally diverse lot? 

Yes. Angles/Saxons, Cymry, 'Romans' and possibly even a few Picts and Jewish people... (if we mix up the historical Welsh kingdom of Ebrauc with medieval Yorkshire).

Edit: it's thought that the Deiran Angles may have been foederati, and thus fairly integrated into 'Malehaut's' culture, making for an easy takeover after King Peredur fell in battle in the late 6th century - sort of like how the Angles and Iceni are described in Hzark10's post.

The Welsh (Cymric) word for all Anglo-Saxons (and Jutes) is Saesneg, which should explain things a bit.

A wouldn't run an adventure requiring nuance with them without more gently suggesting some alternate approaches than killing everyone via some sort of smaller encounters. In my experience, Hate (Saxon) is best countered by opposing it with some of the virtues such as Merciful, Trusting, or Forgiving, which may outstrip that passion for some characters. But with a Hate (Saxons) that high you might have PCs coming to blows over the situation.

Consider having a sympathetic, not-dangerous Saxon appear in the story beforehand, such as a woman, child, or Christian convert. Their influence could lead to a decrease in the passion, which will rapidly become counterproductive once Arthur starts making peace with them. There are 'Danes' (i.e., Jutes) among Arthur's followers in some stories: Meliant of Denmark appears as a Grail knight; Ariohan the Dane is a chivalrous hero; and Escil of Denmark submits to Arthur and fights against Mordred in Geoffrey of Monmouth. (Indeed, with the Jutes being in proximity to Camelot at the Isle of Wight they make a good choice for 'less-fearsome Saxons'). There's also the heroic Amleth (Hamlet) who visits Britain in Saxo Grammaticus (and in Shakespeare) in this very period.

31 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Based on those assorted barbarians books I read in the mid to late '80s, Celtic Christianity was more laid back about evangelization than the Roman Catholic variety that ultimately replaced it.  In fact, I got the general impression that the Roman missionaries were sort of disgusted by their co-religionists' lackluster performance and that it was that as much as any doctrinal disagreements that caused them to root out and replace their predecessors.

It looks like the Welsh didn't even attempt to convert the Saesneg. But the real source of conflict was that the Kentish royal house had made marriage alliances with the Merovingians and the Roman Church was pro-Frankish at the time. To the British, who considered themselves heirs to Rome, I suspect that rankled.

1 hour ago, creativehum said:

A custom suggested on page 72 of KAP 5.2 is that if a lady is widowed twice she gets to pick her own husband. (It is in the little biography of Lady Indeg.)

i don't know if that is historically accurate, but I do like it. It tells a little story about the lady's fortunes and a sense of possibility opened up through unfortunate events.

(Also, "child bearing age" is kind of wish-washy. A specific age would have to be picked for the cutoff point. Yes?)

Well, the idea was that great estates could be 'married off' without some squire or social climber getting the bride. Usually, by this point the woman either had a child and heir to herself by an earlier marriage - or didn't and appeared to be infertile. In each case the overlord would have the next generation or the next-in-line still in their power. Of course sometimes it might backfire: the child might die young; the thirty odd-year old bride ends up pregnant by her own choice of husband...

11 minutes ago, Uqbarian said:

I don't think this is mentioned in the rules, but just to add another line of possible backstories, there was the real-world possibility of a widow paying a fine to her guardian so she could marry her own choice of husband, or even to not marry at all.

This was often only allowed if she was too old to have children, unfortunately.

2 hours ago, creativehum said:

More questions for kicking things off.

KAP core rules says this:

I assume this is an example priest for the manor of one of the knights? Or does Fr. Brugyn do a circuit of all the manors in Salisbury? (This character wasn't in KAP 3rd, so not sure how this is supposed to play out!)

Parishes usually have several manors within them.

Here's something: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/saxonadvent/climate.html

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah for someone who really wants to push things forward do what Mary Stewart did and have Arthur grow up while Uther is still alive. Then you can skip the Anarchy Period and go from Uther at St. Albans to Boy King. 

This is actually what happens in the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate. The gap appeared because of Malory's abridgment. There is a two-year gap (approximately) between Uther's death and the Sword in the Stone.

15 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, but in the Arthurian Legend he was the father of Aldornius and Constatin, and thus an ancestor to Arthur, and the one that legitimizes Arthur's right to rule.

Welsh tradition made him the brother-in-law of Adeon or Gadeon ab Eudaf (as can be seen by the Dream of Macsen) who was Arthur's great-great-grandfather (though the Bretons and Geoffrey also made Arthur a descendant of this guy (who probably = Aldreon in Breton), they do so by a different line).

Nonetheless the Middle English tradition claimed that Arthur was rightful Emperor by descent from both Magnus Maximus and Constantine the Great. The Welsh were obviously less concerned about such imperial ambitions, though he is still called 'the Emperor' in Welsh poetry.

Note that literacy and books is closely associated with magic (both natural and demonic) in Arthurian and medieval romance. A literate knight may become feared or suspected of 'trifling' in such things... Never mind what a literate knight might be moved to do with Camille's books.

Gawain and the Green Knight was clearly an influence. Steinbeck's attempt another. All these are in the suggested reading list at the end of the 5.2 edition, with his comments; you should look there.

We discussed Sir Kay using Karr's novel as a point of reference.

And of course in film Excalibur was one of his favorites.

Greg's Arthuriad is in some ways less opaque than his Glorantha, as his entry into it was through texts we can all access, not a trove of his own texts. Don't imagine that he has necessarily a secret key that contradicts the many stories - his genius was in collation: the key links between his preferred books are I think vigor, emotional honesty, and poetry in the broad sense, i.e., beautiful, symbolically resonant narrative.

I think therefore Arthurian legend is a myth he loves not necessarily as coming out of his personal interrogation of myth and spirituality like Glorantha but loving it entire (something outside of us and him but also including us) in its contradictory, many-layered whole. Like a friend versus one's child or one's self.

Greg's Arthur is the Middle English hero, not the flawed French version. So is his Gawaine (even more so!). His Lancelot, though less clearly, is probably rooted in White, as is much of his Merlin. The key here is love. Love of the flawed heroes and their human-ness in a world which remains vibrant.

It's a list of settlements and castles with their 'real-world' names and their names from the stories or from the period when Greg was 'translating' names from their etymologies. It does have the current canon locations of some places left ambiguous in the GPC and other books.

Well, in Parzival, there's an actual reasoning: a group of knights have abducted the maidens and the knights are searching for them. Of course, one can be diverted by the abduction en route, as is a common trope in romances, if it looks like the route is approximately the same.

The abductor is Meliagant in fact (which would place the events ordinarily before 538) and the abductee is the Lady Imane; the other ladies are her handmaidens and the other knights are Meliagant's escort. As to why they are stealing away to Maelgwn's kingdom, perhaps there is an alliance between Gorre and Gomeret, which makes a great deal of sense. In any case, the rationale for being in the Lonely Forest (Snowdonia) is pretty much irrelevant - the point is meeting the young Percivale, after all, so it changes nothing if the PKs and PLs are doing something else.

In my campaign, the PKs and PLs were searching for Lancelot and were diverted en route into searching for Orilus (the knight whose wife Percivale will shortly trouble) who had taken prisoners for ransom. I tossed the bandit side plot so I could introduce Orilus, Lancelot, and Percivale. This was the very first adventure of my current campaign, so bringing in Lance made a great deal of sense.

Gomeret and Maelgwn are vaguely hostile to Arthur after Maelgwn expels Pellinore's family from the throne in northern Cambria after Pellinore's death (523). Btw the adventure would fit well with the events that lead to the discovery of Percivale in the GPC: his mother's house is about 30 miles north of the Castle of the Kite, so, a different route back or to Cadair Idris could be folded into that episode. I put that in c.535 in my campaign so it would match Chretien.

If you use the century = phase for a rough corresponding sequence of events, the Cambrian War would be around 542, but Arthur's imprisonment would conflict. Maelgwn dies in 547. His son Rhun hir could easily however continue an anti-Arthur policy.

Hostages of Maelgwn could also meet Elffin, the foster-father of Taliesin, and be rescued by the boy-seer if the adventure takes place in the 540s.

An earlier setting could work during the period Ryons usurped northern Wales (c.510-514).

King Garan (whose name means 'crane') is sometimes represented as the father of Gwyddno Garanhir, the ruler of Maes Gwyddno, alias Cantref y Gwaelod. He also is sometimes connected to the family of Cynyr, the father of Cei (Kay the Steward), though this is not the case in this adventure.

2 hours ago, Khanwulf said:

Ok, so yes, it generally has been assumed to be actually turning. Though I still am concerned that there has been a misunderstanding of the origin of the turning maze as it was brought into the ballads.

French is not at my command, sadly. Caer Sidi itself is conflated with the Castle of Glass of legends as well--always on an island, and thus separated from the mortal world by the sea.

 

--Khanwulf 

It isn't actually clear that the fortresses mentioned in Preiddeu Annwn are the same fortress or whether they are different stops on an Otherworldly journey, which I thin is quite possible: there are fragmentary references in Welsh sources (as well as John Dee!) to an Arthurian expedition to Iceland and Greenland. Caer Wydr is usually on an island, but may be distinct from Ynys Wydryn and so forth: we simply don't know. It does resemble in certain ways the 'tower' or 'pillar of glass' encountered in various Imrama stories and in the Partholon story, which suggest possibly an iceberg.

In Welsh, 'siddi' can mean 'turning', but here it's thought to be an Irish loan-word. A 'turning castle' appears as Curoi's fortress in Irish myth, and that legend, in any rate, is probably not contaminated significantly with romance influence. There is also a turning castle in Perlesvaus, and if I recall correctly, in Artus de Petit-Bretagne.

6 hours ago, Khanwulf said:

On the Turning Castle... do you tend to represent that as an actual, rotating castle? Or one that uses or sits within the Celtic seven-turning maze motif?

Just curious.

It's literally turning in the romance, but it's only mentioned in the Vulgate. It is, however, a folk-translation of Caer Siddi (though the real etymology is the Irish Sidh, or mound). Here's a brief article (in French, if you can read it): https://www.persee.fr/doc/roma_0035-8029_1911_num_40_158_4633. Suffice to say it's a somewhat common romance motif associated with wizards.

The location of Camelot is Cadbury on the poster map that came with the 1st edition, to clarify things a little. There are also more 'historical' references in the (original) Pendragon Campaign book. Morris' Age of Arthur (now very outdated) was a crucial source for the 3rd edition in particular. Hence there was a certain amount of 'historical Arthur' floating behind all the Malory.

edit: also the names of the cities of Britain were Latin on the poster map, not English: Ratae instead of Leicester, for instance.

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

yes, but does that mean others can't eat food they hunt because they don't know the Peaceful Cut? In Prax almost everyone outside Pavis knows the Peaceful Cut except the Poljoni, the Cannibals, and the Oasis-Dwellers, the last of which mostly just eat traded meats and the vegetables and fruits that fall into their hands, and even they have Wahans and Eirithrans; Kerofinelans and Poljoni are mostly Orlanth or Ernalda-worshippers. These folks don't all learn the Peaceful Cut; only Wahans do. (And Eirithrans, as of last edition, also had a distinct Peaceful Cut so they could, like, butcher their own meat of their own goddess, but I have no idea if that's still true because the God book isn't out yet.)

Waha is a a member of the Storm Tribe and hence a minor Orlanthi deity (and is worshipped by the Poljoni anyway, just not as the primary male divinity). Part of being a Heortling butcher is learning the Peaceful Cut. Otherwise Praxians couldn't eat the meat outside their tribes, and Bob's Bison Burgers would lose a lot of customers. See David Scott's comments here: https://www.glorantha.com/forums/topic/prax-and-all-the-thousands-of-questions-about-it/page/2/

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... everyone who doesn't learn it from their god. Wahans and Eirithans learned Peaceful Cut skills in earlier editions, but it was (acceptably) different between them. But an Orlanthi doesn't learn the peaceful cut. Maybe some hunting gods teach a Peaceful Cut skill, but it wouldn't be Waha's.

It's a specific magical way to ensure the game spirit ends up reborn.

The Bloody Cut is a parody: it binds a soul forever to the Ivory Plinth and its weird god. That's why people hate Tuskers! If you get killed by their rite you don't go to the spirit world, you get locked into a demon's cage in the Stinking Forest forever.

As I understand it (word of Jeff Richard), Waha is the Heortling butcher-god, and his followers do learn Peaceful Cut in Sartar and among the Southern Theyalans. However there may be a different tradition among the Alakorings.

9 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

Thank both of you for your answers 🤩 The Arden Forest and The Perilous Forest are both interesting. To my knowledge however, Gwenbaus was just trapped in a "carole" forever dancing, but it sounds very intriguing.

Gwenbaus is a magician (a 'wise clerk') and derives ultimately from Gwyn ap Nudd. There are three major 'marvels' made by him in the Perilous Forest - a form of courting the 'wise lady of the Perilous Forest' (a 'king's daughter', though never named) - the Castle of the Caroles (which also appears in Meraugis), the magic chessboard (probably a variant of the magic chessboard in the Second Continuation and the Didot Perceval, as well as Gwenddolau's magic gwyddbydd board), and the Turning Castle... Loomis related him to Curoi, the Irish wizard. The Perilous Forest is crowded with other strangeness: it is the home of Hellawes, Annowre (though she is also placed in Darnantes, nearby), one version of Merlin's tomb, the abbey of the Perilous Hall, where Moyse suffers eternal torment, etc.

In this regard Arden may be a better choice, as it doesn't displace these things. Though I might add the 'De Boys' family and Celia and Rosalinde to any adventure there...

Galvoie is deeply entwined in the Conte du Graal and Klingsor. (See Chretien and Wolfram von Eschenbach)

I would suggest a placement in the Perilous Forest, where a similar enchanted realm was created by Gwenbaus in the Vulgate Merlin and Livre d'Artus.

Perlesvaus places the 'Cercle d'Or' at Montesclaire, which is probably Alclud, but that contradicts the geography of the adventure.

Historically, the Saxons (Gewisse) around the Thames Valley were pretty early (<500) so the dyke - which if Roman or pre-Roman perhaps delineated a boundary between the Belgae and the Dobunni (and Atrebates), might have been refurbished in the late 5th century. In Geoffrey of Monmouth the Gewisse are the mercenary tribe serving Vortigern.

Edit: current historical theories: http://projects.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex.html

Edit 2: 'Gewisse' is 'Gentian' where the knight who kills Constantine comes from...