jeffjerwin

Though it would require some conversion work, this free adventure for Harn might be just the thing: https://www.lythia.com/adventures/earls-progress/

They aren't historical or derived from a romance source, but are there to explain Pellinore's troubles in Gomeret.

In Parzival there are some fictional counterparts to them: Orilus and Lahelin.

8 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

Your campaign sounds like a lot of fun!

Anyway, for a complete list of round table knights, I almost forgot the  list established by Malory for the healing  (book XIX, chapter XI).

Keep in mind that Malory accidentally resurrected quite a few people... But _at some point_ they must have all been RTKs.

4 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

Sounds very interesting. Did you portray Gronosis as an evil character, or as a character with knowledge about evil? How did you manage the relationship with Kay?

Gronosis in my game has a high intrigue and has some unpleasant Personality Traits (high Deceitful, high Suspicious). Kay is a demanding and sarcastic father, but is capable of love: he does love Arthur and loves Guinevere. It's a difficult but not hostile relationship.

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

So does in-universe Dar, doesn't it? And, well, "chief" itself, if that term is still used anywhere.

I was mostly looking for in-universe explanations rather than real-world etymology. For example, Belintar is cited as having heavily used Western/Malkioni terminology in his restructuring of Kethaela, with military Dukes and so forth. Ralios retains the title Archon from the Stygian Empire, and the Lunar Empire refers to its constituent regions as satrapies as a result of borrowing Carmanian terminology.

I was wondering if such a process might've occured with "prince", as we don't seem to find many other Orlanthi Heortling "princes" in Kethaela or Kerofinela. (although we probably find some Malkionized Orlanthi/Henotheist princes in Maniria and maybe Ralios and Fronela. There's a Jonatelan principality that comes to mind).

It's not a huge issue either way, I'm just interested if any particular consideration had been given to it.

I have a feeling the title Prince as an innovation comes not from Belintar but from Sartar the Larnsting and it may represent a Heortling word that means 'First', rather than a Western borrowing.

Prince or princeps more or less corresponds to 'head, chief', 'numero uno'.

It tends to imply less rigid systems of authority than king, lord, emperor, etc., and can, as in Machiavelli, mean the head of a republic.

I think this means that Sartar did not adopt a title indicating tribal kingship (he belonged to no tribe), but one implying he was the 'first among the Quivini', the spokesman. So the 'king' implicit in Orlanth rex may be a little different from the word used for prince, or even King of Kerofinela.

Interestingly, in Welsh, we use brenin for king, which means 'consort of Brigantia', the goddess of sovereignty. This seems awfully similar to the ritual status of the consort of the Feathered Horse Queen.

3 hours ago, Morien said:

Base calumny and pro-Camelot propaganda! Long live Good King Mark!

(Our PKs aligned with Cornwall in 500 and thus ended up on the wrong side of 'Arthur the Win-Hax' in 510-513, resulting in the PKs' exile to Cornwall where they continued as favorites of King Mark, former Regent of Salisbury. It has been fun examining the insufferably smug and holier-than-thou Logres knights from Cornwall perspective.

Besides... from GMing perspective, King Mark/John is a much more fun to play & generate drama than Arthur 'I am the Perfect King' Pendragon. )

In all seriousness, even aside from Tristram, who had complex reasons for foreswearing his allegiance, the trouble with being Mark's knight, is, like Sir Dinas and others, they will be forced to make a choice between being a good man (or woman) and being a loyal knight. It's probably for the best that these choices aren't part of the standard campaign.

Of course, in the verse Tristan romances, Mark is never an evil king. A weak or human king, yes. His malignancy in Malory and the Prose Tristan is a deliberate contrast to King Arthur's goodness; Mark as a complex and sometimes good king feels more modern to us but it was the older model, rejected by nearly every storyteller after c.1230, though perhaps influenced by.a hostile presentation of Mark that was even older in Cornish and Breton folklore and saints lives. (It should be noted that the whole plot of the Downfall in the Vulgate relies on tropes and moral problems that were raised first in the Tristan verse romances).

1 minute ago, Username said:

@Uqbarian

@jeffjerwin

Thanks for the info. I remember the comments of war in Brittany now from the GPC. Though I didn't notice the ones in the Book of Sires. I should have looked at it more closely. 

From what you're saying, it seems like Domnonie and Cornouailles should be represented as parts of Cornwall while Leon and Vannetais should be vassals or allies. 

My presumption would be that Idres was able to get his hands on the high kingship of Brittany and that the other kings didn't agree with Mark inheriting the position leading to war. Much like what happens in Cambria during the GPC.

Pretty much. Duke Hoel isn't exactly passive, however (he's the heir of Budec), and Mark also becomes progressively worse as an over-king. In Cornwall and Brittany you have the example of 'what happens when your liege is basically King John'.

There'll be a lot more on Cornwall and Brittany in a few years. (I'm the author)

The situation in Brittany is simplified in the GPC and is explored in depth. It's got serious problems, I'll just say. If you want a war during the Pax Arthuriana, that's the place to go...

14 hours ago, Uqbarian said:

EDIT: As for Brittany, Aurelius and Uther go to Vannetais (according to the Book of Sires). Idres is of the Cornovii in the Kingdom of Cornwall, not Brittany. Vannetais is the oldest of the Cymric kingdoms in Brittany (since 395); that's why the kings of Vannetais are also called the kings of Brittany before other kingdoms are founded there. (There's not a high kingship of Brittany, as far as I can tell.) Domnonie is founded in 457, Cornouailles in 468. (I can't find info on Leon in GPC or BOS, but drawing on the possible historical and fictional parallels, my first thought is that Leon was settled by folk from Lyonesse. These could be Dumnonii who were driven out of Lyonesse by the Irish in the early fifth century, but as they don't join up with Domnonie, maybe they are bolstered in the 450s by families from both of the Cornish tribes (as well as some of the expelled Irish) who were sick of the Cornovii-Dumnonii wars and didn't want to choose one side or ther other.)

There will be more on Brittany eventually. It did have a high kingship, at least in Geoffrey of Monmouth, with King Budic (Budec in the BoS). Earlier there are others, quite significant in Breton folklore.

Lyonesse is a form of the Irish Ui Liathain, a sea-going and mercenary tribe that colonized western Cornwall according to Irish legend. The name Liathain was Anglicized as Lyons in Ireland. But by the time of the BoS they have been conquered by the Cornovii. Leon would logically be another Irish colony (also absorbed into the Bretons), these dating probably to the time of the Barbarian Conspiracy.

9 hours ago, Uqbarian said:

Of course! Yep, GPC has Ector de Maris being conceived after Bedegraine in 510 (page 133), though GPC describes Maris as a lordship rather than a kingdom.

Maris and Roestoc are represented as enemies of the Fisher King in the Adventure of the Castle of Joy (c.517). I suspect they're neutral before Badon.

1 hour ago, Tizun Thane said:

Thank you so much!

You're right about Carahes, the Ugly Brave, and Malduit. Not sure about Gornevain. The two names doesn't sound the same in french at all.

For Yder of the Dolorous Mount, he can not be the same character that Yder son of Nut. This Yder, son of Nut, is the first villain in the same Erec and Enide story who insulted the queen. He became a RKT after his defeat by the way. But tales and logic... Maybe he is the same legendary character after all, divided in two names.

For Gronosis, the mysterious son of Kay the Senechal, "well versed in evil", I found he could be Garanwyn,  the son of Kay mentionned in Culhwch and Olwen0

 

 

Yder - like Brian of the Isles - appears on both sides, as an enemy and as an ally. Since he's the brother of Gwyn ap Nudd, perhaps we should not be surprised.

Strike that about Agravadain. Gornevain is Gorvain Cadrus (spelling varies).

Gronosis is a PC in my game. The names have a superficial resemblance, but I think it's more likely Gronosis is derived from the Welsh name Gronwy, (variants: Grono, Goronwy). Kay is related in some Welsh pedigrees to Gronwy Pebr, that is the ruler of Penllyn in the Mabinogi - the seducer/-ed of Blodeuwedd - and of course Cei Hir and his father were also rulers of Penllyn in Arthurian legend.

The Ugly Brave is Acanor, a secondary but frequently mentioned Moorish RTK. He is also the nephew of Kay.

Carahes is a variant of Gaheris.

Yder de Mount Doloreus is not the same as Idres. He is probably a double of Yder filz Nut, a different character, with his own romance.

Malduit the Wise is a wizard knight (Malduc) in the German Lanzelet. He becomes hostile to Arthur and is slain.

Gornevain is Agravadain the Brown most likely

Note that rich widows can buy their own marriage rights from the Lord so they don't have to marry his choice or marry at all...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwi-xevrzsbkAhVIY6wKHfuLAZ4QFjAAegQIBBAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.lib.unb.ca%2Findex.php%2Fflor%2Farticle%2FviewFile%2F12530%2F20155&usg=AOvVaw3y6dw3ywqzHSqXwmfkvGi3

7 minutes ago, Ellie said:

I'd love to run a game where the woman sees her husband cut down so she takes up is cause and rides out in his name. In fact my newly created female knight might take up a similar backstory and motivation now. I think she saw her father and older brothers killed in combat and took up being a squire. Revenge always makes for easy motivation. 

You should read up on Jeanne de Flandres, duchess of Brittany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Flanders

I haven't had it happen in my own campaign yet.

However, when it happened years ago in the campaign my father ran there was a funeral and feast, and my character was too heartbroken to move on for at least several years (Love (wife) 18) (and note this wife (who was an heiress and beautiful and all that) was won by an arduous series of adventures, not by rolling on a table). By that point, however, his sons were looking for wives, so that was the focus. If the campaign had continued (it didn't get to the end of the story) perhaps he would have eventually married a widow?

I'm sure that any major character deserves a send-off (in a dynastic game) at least as interesting as the way they were introduced.

I think the main question is, 'does Merlin have some sort of goal in mind involving Arthur and the Grail?'

It may be irrelevant, given that he vanishes before the Grail Quest or its prologues begin, but the romances do specify that he had some definite interest in the Grail. In the Didot Perceval he comes back (or his ghost does) and advices Percivale on his quest.

The other main clues that indicate that the Round Table and the Grail are closely linked are the prophecy that the Quest can only begin when every seat is filled, and the obvious connection between the Perilous Seat and the Grail - it designates the Grail hero's place, as well as the utter unraveling of Arthur's kingdom after the Quest, as if it had served its purpose.

Merlin was a collector of magical objects, and perhaps he simply intended to fuse the Grail kingdom with the Round Table, bringing it to Camelot. If you see him as malevolent, perhaps he created the Round Table in order to secure the Grail for his private collection. He is, after all, the Son of the Devil. Or perhaps he simply foresaw that the Wasteland and the Quest would be the gravest challenge for Britain and Arthur and wished to make the king and his followers ready for it.

There are indications that some sort of plan or process was repaired by the appearance of Galahad; the Vulgate makes reference to Lancelot's former destiny to achieve the Grail, which he fails by his love affair (curiously, Vivianne and Nimue seem to encourage the affair). There are also versions of the story where Percivale and Gawaine are the Grail hero. Gawaine would represent the archetype of a dauntless hero rather than a pious Templar, but the Post-Vulgate makes his fall even more dramatic than Lancelot's. It may be noteworthy that Arthur's kingdom is the very model of a Celtic hero-band but is not very good at being a Christian state. Since it is 'designed' by Merlin, perhaps he wanted the heroic 'fight your way to the artifact' and 'bring it back gloriously' route all along. This might actually put him at odds with the Grail kingdom, and suggests the Table was an imitation, rather than a relic of the Grail realm itself. But Providence intervened...

I'd point out that if the tribe was called the Jaldonkillers there are two ways to approach the idea of an ancestral foe: demonization, or grudging respect. Compare how the Persians approached the deeds and legend of Alexander the Great in the early Middle Ages: he was both a hero and their enemy (and secretly, really a Persian, as the Shahnamah argues...).

8 hours ago, Morien said:

All the more reason to fix the KAP 5.2 childbirth table!

But yeah, I am bit surprised as well, although I guess that it makes sense, storytelling-wise: if the father is dead, then there is revenge to be had, a usurper to be overthrown! If the mother died in childbirth, there is not much that the hero can do about that.

Plus if the mother is still alive (like with Alisaunder the Orphelin, La Cote Mal Taille, and Percivale), she can exhort her son to either avenge his father, or shy from dangerous knightly things, as in the case of Percivale. If it's a foster mother or step-mother the emotional aspect is diminished. Interestingly the evil stepmother motif seems to be mostly absent except in a few (fairly obscure) ballad versions of the stories.

I think that if this becomes a pattern in KAP,  that is, older character dies, son takes over, with a living mother there's actually more continuity between the generations, in a somewhat sentimental way. This matches up with the stories I mention above. Avenging one's dead old character is an excellent motivation.

13 hours ago, Khanwulf said:

There are some interesting bits here that I don't believe were captured by Sires. (Correct me if wrong.)

So Lamorat(k) was Pellinore's cousin. Can we assume he was older? And it was Pellinore who inherited a kingdom--a fragment we can presume of the larger Grail Kingdom shattered by Varlon's treachery probably in 410-425, with subsequent civil war fragmenting everything.

I suppose Cunedda was part of this family as well, though I may be mixing historical and Arthurian characters; perhaps Pellinore or his father = Cunedda?

One thing I'd be very interested in understanding is whether it would be plausible for Pellinore to be a squire in 477, squired to perhaps an older Lamorat, himself a knight alongside friend Sir Breunor.

(I want do run some "Ambrosian Squire High School" adventures and let the PKs meet future luminaries such as Pellinore and Madoc around this time.)

Lamorak is Pellinore's brother. I can't say what order they were born.

Neither has any connection to Cunedda, at least according to the romances. Pellinore in Parzival (as 'Gahmuret') married the queen of 'Norgals'. Originally, she is identified as a member of the Grail Family, but since Pellinore has been made a son of the Grail King rather than a son-in-law, her ancestry would seem to have more to do with Cunedda and Gwynedd than his.

Pellinore was a young knight in the mid 480s. I suppose making him a squire in 477 isn't impossible.

On 9/6/2019 at 3:02 AM, Tizun Thane said:

Many mothers died in childbirth in the Arthurian mythos. It's the "orphan hero" cliché.

The only example is Tristram, and the main reason for it is justifying his name with a mistaken French etymology.

Edit: I was a bit surprised to find this to be the case. However, dead fathers are far more common than dead mothers.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

So.. in KAP timeline when might Varlon kill Pellinore's grandfather and shatter the strength of the Grail Kingdom?

Can we assume this kingdom is/was located in the Lake District, then? And is that kingdom partially translated into Faerie on or after Lambor's death?

Perhaps Lamorak the Elder became a Grail Knight first? Or did so after Uther died?

If Uther's Round Table was intended by Merlin (whether made by him or not) to be a representation of the Grail Table, such that it would draw the Grail into Britain and bestow spiritual sovereignty onto the king, then it may be irrelevant that Uther was such a poor Christian ruler--or on the other hand it might explain how the table was handed over for safe-keeping in anticipation of Arthur. (Whether or not Uther's close confidents knew and prepared for Arthur or not.)

 

--Khanwulf

The 'wasting' of the Grail Kingdom is described independently in several romances: at first it seems - as in Chretien - to be the result of war (possibly even started by Arthur). In the Post-Vulgate it takes on the supernatural character we see in KAP. The Varlon-Lambor war was the previous explanation, not really superseded, that seems to explain its disintegration. I think of Pellam's Grail kingdom as the mere rump of a larger and richer realm that covered much of the North before Lambor's death. Note his enemy is sometimes described as a brother or cousin, so it may be a civil war, though conversely he is also described as a convert to Christianity, which might seem to rule that out.

Having Lamorak the Elder as a bridge between the Round Table and the Grail Knights may be useful. He was killed by his friend Breunor, 'the Good Knight without Fear' in the romance of Guiron prior to the death of Uther, but not long before, according to that romance, so there may not be an opportunity for him to leave Uther and join the Grail Knights.

This is Lamorak or Lamorat the Elder, brother of Pellinore and namesake of his nephew. He ultimately derives from Llywarch hen, the poet and prince of Rheged (and lineal ancestor of the House of Aberffraw, the princes of Gwynedd).

He is definitely a member of the Grail family, and possibly a Grail knight. Llywarch hen bears the severed head of Urien, his kinsman, back from his fatal battle near Lindisfarne in a poem attributed to him. There's an overlap between Urien and *Brien, Brons, and with the severed head in the Grail in Peredur.

However, the Grail kingdom suffered a serious calamity after Varlon (alias Urlains - Brien/Urien's evil double) slew king Lambor, who was Pellinore and Lamorak the Elder's grandfather. I'm not sure that the kingdom could really maintain a household of knights. In Parzival, there are the Templeisen, who are the Grail Knights, but they seem to be few in number. Wagner of course represents Gornemant/Gurnemanz as one of them, and Klingsor as a failed postulant. It may be that they continue in secret.

The Queste and most other Grail romances ultimately ask the Grail knights to surrender their allegiance to Arthur. If Lamorak the Elder became a Grail knight, it would be in conflict with his homage to Uther.

Edit: Uther and Arthur represent worldly loyalty and the Grail represents homage to Christ. Hence while sovereignty descends from God, and the king is God's vicegerent - he is also human and inferior to God. Usually a knight serves both, but... Uther in particular is not a good Christian.

9 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Totally aware and no I was not making an error I was referring to Walton’s The Four Branches of the Mabinogion ... and before you say it I am also aware that it sucks and has nothing to do with the real thing and.... and... and... I still like it.

eta anyway off topic, sorry.

Cool. Yes, rather off topic. Though as I recall, death in childbirth only happens for narrative reasons in Celtic legend (so the hero's an orphan, mainly), not because it's common. Hence 'Childbirth and Child Survival' would have to be handled entirely differently...

7 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The four branches of the Mabinogion are some of my favourite reads. 

Just so everyone knows, Mabinogion is a mistake; I believe Lady Guest thought that was the plural because of mistakes by earlier editors. The name is 'the Four Branches of the Mabinogi'. The Mabinogi contains direct references to 11th-12th century history so the stories seem to be substantially altered from the oral tradition, if they can be trusted at all as accurate renditions of Welsh folklore about the Plant Llyr and Plant Don. In this way they resemble the distorted legends we have of the Aos Si and other peoples of Ireland in the Book of Invasions, which are mediated through Irish Christianity and sources like Isidore of Seville.

A prime example is the conflation of Bran fab Llyr/Bendigeitfran with Brian Boru, clear from the Irish geography preserved in the Mabinogi. Tolstoy suggests the Mabinogi was a work of political propaganda directed against enemies of the dynasty of Rhodri Mawr.

Arthur does not appear in the Four Branches proper, but stories about him are often in the same compilations. These stories can be firmly dated to the early-mid 12th century (or in the cases of the romances like Geriant ac Enid, c.1250+), and are hence contemporary with Geoffrey of Monmouth or the Vulgate. Culhwch ac Olwen is somewhat older, but still no earlier than 1075 or so. 

There has been some suggestion by critics that CaO is in fact a parody, working from lost material that closely resembled the Irish Fenian sagas. Thus the original stories were presumably more serious and less ridiculous, with superhuman heroes, but not quite so bizarre a style.

Much more Arthurian and semi-Arthurian material survives in fragmentary form in the Welsh Triads. Bromwich's edition is the best for non-Welsh speakers.

Hence a 'Welsh' King Arthur is just as much an anachronistic figure rooted in the hopes and fears of the 11-12th century as the French Arthur and later English Arthur. A 'Fenian' Arthur however has some possibility of being original (that is, contemporary with Nennius at least), but would have to be reconstructed from Irish parallels and hints from the Triads and poetry. (Though Arthur appears as 'leader of the Feni of Britain' in some Fenian stories, though if he was a contemporary with Finn, who (even though he is clearly mythological) is placed in the First /Second Century, he would be fighting Romans, not Saxons). Such a figure is more likely to be a war chief than a king.