AlHazred

Has anyone compiled a list of gaming magazines that have published CoC articles over the years? I've seen preliminary lists of English-language resources, but in compiling Pendragon scenarios for this thread, I see that there have been a lot of them in non-English publications. In particular, I see Casus Belli [French] has been publishing magazines for going on four decades, there have to be a lot just in that resource. In doing this, I've found Google Translate is good with the European languages, and has allowed me to read articles people sent me thirty years ago. A little late, sure, but at least I got there!...

I was RPG Director for a local convention back in the day, and have a lot of acquaintances in the local gaming. So, I've got a line on the Spanish-language scenarios and have started translating those to add blurbs with the Googles. I feel like, as an English-language gamer in the 80s and 90s, I missed out on a lot of good content from overseas. Also, there are at least five or six scenarios with "White Deer" or "White Stag" in the title. EDIT: I see I was mistaken. I had remembered there was an "Adventure of the White Stag" in The Great Book of Pendragon Treasures, a netbook that made the rounds online a while ago, but tracking that down I find that it's actually the exact same (translated) scenario as the one in Lider magazine. In fact, a few of the adventures in The Great Book of Pendragon Treasures are apparently copied from other sources: the two @ShannonA scenarios from Ye Book of Tentacles are in there, for example. Did not realize that was a collection of pirated material, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised at a Netbook for doing that. Still: “Adventure of the White Hart,” Beaumains #2 (1993) [EN] “La Chasse au Blanc Cerf (The Hunt for the White Deer,)” Casus Belli HS #8 (June 1993) [FR] “Les Cerfs Blancs (The White Deer,)” Tatou #16 (November 1993) [FR] “Aventura del Ciervo blanco (The Adventure of the White Stag,)” Lider (2nd Epoch) #39 (January 1994) [ES] “Adventure of the Hunt for the White Stag,” Tales of Chivalry & Romance (April 1999) [EN]

Interesting! I have all the 4th edition stuff, but hadn't picked up 5.X stuff yet, and then I heard 6th edition is on its way so I held off.

Le Collège des Cendres ("The Ashen College") Le Goût des Cendres ("The Taste of Ashes") This is a scenario (Le goût des Cendres) and a setting (Le collège des Cendres) from Casus Belli #103 (March 1993). Let's get a pun out of the way; I have been informed that the location of the setting, the "plateau des Cendres", is a euphemism for "ash tray." I would call it the Cinder Plateau in game, were I to use it. This is an AD&D 2nd edition scenario that also frequently gets mentioned in these lists. It is dual-statted for AD&D 2nd edition and WFRP 1st edition. The setup is the player characters are in a young lord's castle and learn of the depredations of a dragon who has been decimating the sheep herds of the nearby villages. The captain of the guards, an old paladin, swears that he has always meant to kill the dragon but the old lord forbade it; now he plans to head an expedition to kill the beast. The players can do some investigating and then accompany the paladin. Things are not as they seem. On the face of it, this seems like an ideal scenario to convert to Pendragon -- there's knights, and a young lord in a manor on an enchanted plateau, and a quest to slay a dragon. There are several caveats that make this scenario difficult (at best) to convert. I'll put them under spoilers below, just to make sure only those who intend to run this see them.

Next one on the list: Winterballade (Winter Ballad): From The Trodox - Ars Arcana, issue #40. This one is good. It's a winter scenario, so the GM is instructed to produce character sheets for regular people from one knight's manor -- a group of woodsmen. In the prelude to the scenario, all players play one of the woodsmen, who have an eerie encounter in the woods near the player knight's manor. When any survivors return to the manor, the scenario starts in earnest; it is recommend the player knight play his character while the other players play other NPCs from the manor or any surviving woodsmen. The scenario concerns a mortal troubadour who became enamored of a fairy lady. He gave her his heart, and she did not return his love but also refused to return his heart. Now he haunts the winter (she's a winter fairy) as a kind of magical minstrel. The crux of the scenario deals with how the knight deals with this threat, as the troubadour could return every winter until he is decisively dealt with. I like the idea of keeping this scenario for the session where you have one player show up and all the rest of the players bail out at the last minute, as an add-on to the previous session's Winter Phase. You could also modify the scenario to have it coincidentally take place at a point where one player knight is hosting the rest of the player knights at his manor, but the foes would probably need to be beefed up considerably. I like this one a lot. Highly recommended.

The Black Knight (from White Dwarf #83), by Bryan Sturdy This is the scenario that inspired this thread. It's a scenario statted out for WFRP 1st edition, AD&D 1st edition, and Pendragon 1st-3rd edition. I own the issue and was alerted to it by a post on Graeme Davis' blog, where he talked about the drive to get Warhammer Fantasy materials out to support the game when it first came out. Villagers request your characters' aid in defeating a Black Knight who guards the only ford from the village from any who can't win a joust with him; while he prevents passage, they can't do any trade! How did the PCs get to the village if the only way in is guarded by a Black Knight? Not answered. The PCs can find out the Black Knight is actually several knights who travel in a band. They helped the villagers by killing a group of trolls that preyed upon them. The villagers refused to pay them, so this is the revenge they're taking. They had their swords stolen in the night after they dealt with the trolls, and they blame the villagers. This scenario is all over the place. There's a group of outlaws, secret tunnels that conveniently go from one part of the railroad to another, a dead wizard, hibernating trolls, and undead fish. To put it mildly, this scenario involves a lot of work on the part of the Pendragon GM to adapt, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. This gets 2 or 3 out of 10 from me. The logic holes are bad enough, I didn't even run this for AD&D when I got it back in the day.

I've been working on a spreadsheet with a list of Pendragon articles from various periodicals. A few of the articles I've come across are frequently listed on similar lists of Pendragon scenarios, but are actually for a different game system. Since at this point, a person would find it difficult to track down a physical copy of these old periodicals, I thought I'd review what I have found so far. Feel free to add your own reviews of Pendragon-adjacent material, as it may be of help to someone dredging auction sites for old books. . . . . SPOILER SPACE . . . . . .

I lied about which one was next because this one didn't take long. Anciens Mystères (Ancient Mysteries): From Casus Belli, issue #40. I agree with @Tizun Thane, this one feels like an AD&D scenario restatted and modified for Pendragon. It is also poorly laid-out: each encounter is introduced with a "narration," as from a player knight describing it briefly, and then has "notes" which are typically very brief and don't go into the sort of detail you would want. That makes it annoying to read and comprehend, but by itself isn't enough to give it a poor rating. Its other problems give it that rating.

I think I have "Premiere Armes" done, Google Translate did pretty well, and the few places where it didn't some thought made it clear. It's a good scenario, but difficult to implement prior to AD 531. I'm trying to figure out if it can be done with Uther.

I've had the chance to start checking these out, and figure my reviews might be helpful to add to @Tizun Thane's. Of course, I started with the German ones. Die schlafende Schöne (The Sleeping Beauty): From The Trodox - Ars Arcana, issue #37. As might be expected from the title, this is based on the story "Sleeping Beauty" from the Brothers Grimm, but there's a couple of twists. I have a few issues. I'll put them behind spoilers for people who haven't read it. Other than the quibbles I have below, I think this is a decent scenario, and works really well as a solo, perhaps for a knight who is still unwed after the rest of the party has started their families. Next up, "Winterballade" from issue #40.

Saw this post in another thread, and thought I'd put it here. I've got a friend with a bunch of Casus Belli magazines, and he was kind enough to photocopy the "Premières Armes," "Anciens Mystères," and "La Chasse au Blanc Cerf" scenarios for me. I'm going to see how I get along with my OCR scanner, my two years of high school French from 30+ years ago, and Google Translate! He's also got a few Tatou magazines, but he'll have to check storage to see if he's got the one with "Fleur de Sang" in it.

Added!

Thank you! I will add them once I'm home from work! I added a second tab, where I will probably put scenarios from book supplements; they're not exactly the same as magazine articles, but it would be nice to have one spot to search for these things.

Man, I wish I spoke Spanish. And had more than the tiniest smattering of French. For our foreign friends who might not be aware, EasteNWest (FR) is freely available online, as is The Trodox Ars Arcana (DE) and The Dragons of Britain (UK). Nivel 9 (ES) is not free, but it's still available to download; if you're on the fence, get it now. They all look fantastic. Sword & Sorcery Insider (US) used to be free, but when the website was taken down they became unavailable. Some aren't even available on archive.org.

Thanks so much, @mandrill_one! I've added a DATE and LOCATION column to the sheet, so you can sort adventures. Like I said, I want to avoid rereading a million books when I run Pendragon again!

That is in the list! I have that one, and it's not great for Pendragon. It's statted for the 1st editions of King Arthur Pendragon, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but it's really more of a WFRP or AD&D scenario than Pendragon. It's workable, but needs modifications to fit Arthurian Britain. Maybe as an early Phase I scenario.

That's fantastic! Thanks! RE: French edition original scenarios -- YES! I only speak English and a little German, but the European products for many games are excellent, in many cases superior in presentation to American and British versions. I'm thinking here of the Call of Cthulhu stuff from France and the Shadowrun stuff from Germany, both better than anything Anglophone.

This thread inspired me to put together a spreadsheet with articles for Pendragon from various sources. You can view it here. I don't have all of the periodicals listed, but put in what I've got. The "Type" column indicates what it is: Adventure and Review should be self-explanatory. Background is material relating to in-game things, like an article detailing the Arthurian Age city of Chester; some of the Background articles are basically just system neutral items. Reference is out-of-game things like music playlists for sessions. Elements refers to very short pieces with maybe an NPC, or a monster; not detailed enough to be an Adventure, not general enough to be Background. Please put criticisms (and affirmations) in this thread so I can update and change it to suit. I wanted this so I could refer to it when I eventually run a game of Pendragon again, without having to reread all the articles. Still To Do: Pull out my copies of Ye Booke of Tentacles to check those for content. Check old Dragon magazines, I could swear there was more than just two articles. EDIT: Fluff out periodicals I don't have with information from rpggeek.com.

This issue had "The Adventure of the Knight Sinister" by Allen Varney and Dave Flora.

Sure, but back in the day I always got the impression the True Mostali were far more specialized in function and form than the petty dwarves that we call "Mostali" today. Like, the dwarves don't look like short humans but they might at least be "humanoid" with two arms and two legs. But my impression (possibly derived incorrectly!) rereading the old Wyrm's Footnotes and other old material was that True Mostali might be completely alien in form. A Sartarite would at least picture Vingkot in human form on a piece of art.

See, that's what I thought. But technically only the Clay Mostali are "dwarves," the True Mostali aren't.

Question: Do they claim dwarves came before humans? Or Mostali came before humans? Because the second one is definitely "true", but dwarves didn't exist until the Mostali had to shore up their numbers due to losses immediately after the World Machine broke, and I'm not sure how that lines up with the rise of humans. Humans generally only pay attention to their own kind in their histories.

Not done yet, but I am really pleased with it and am looking forward to #5!

I picked up the PDF and have been checking it out. I noticed some typos. Do you want those sent in?

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