Leingod

I would say that a major tribal temple like Greenstone has members from across the tribe, but the clan whose lands they're on/closest to would be where you see the most, and would likely be the most influential in the hierarchy.

Incidentally, while it happens pretty late in the Pendragon timeline, Christian monks working for Emperor Justinian smuggle silkworm eggs out of China (assisted by contacts in Sogdiana) and start the Byzantine Empire's indigenous silk industry in the mid-550s. Which a.) is just in time to contribute to the stunning decadence of Arthur's court in the Twilight Period, and b.) is a good example of just how much more connected East and West were than we often tend to imagine (likely because it's the kinds of people who usually don't write or get written about who did all this traveling). After all, those (likely Nestorian) monks had previously spent years in India, then went to China in 551 and learned the secrets of sericulture (previously the Romans had actively believed silk was cultivated in India), then went to Constantinople a year or two later and made a deal with Justinian to make a smuggling run for him, which they pulled off in about 2 years or so. With stuff like that in mind, there's any number of ways to justify people from parts pretty far east showing up in Britain (especially given how incredibly rich and famous Arthur and his court are supposed to be), albeit more likely as traders peddling exotic wares rather than mercenaries or foreign knights. Right, thanks. The migrations of the steppe peoples in Eastern Europe isn't something I'm all that familiar with.

As the Book of Knights & Ladies notes, any knight in the literature who's supposed to be from "Hungary," notably Sir Urré, is probably a Hun. Or at least is probably from any number of steppe peoples active in the area like the Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, etc. that would often be lumped in with the Huns. Notably, Sir Sagramore is supposedly the son of the "King of Hungary" and a sister of the Byzantine Emperor, meaning he's half-Hun and half-Greek. And if you want such a character to arrive in Britain earlier, you can posit that some Hunnic nobles or warriors got taken captive in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and couldn't arrange a ransom payment to get back to the continent and ended up just sticking around, likely as an ornament of the court - you know, a feather in the king's cap to parade around that he's got a "Hunnic prince" in his entourage. And, of course, you could really justify any "Roman" character as coming from just about anywhere that Rome once ruled or at least was in close contact with (and thus would inevitably have mingled with at the borders), from Africa to the Near East. And, yes, there's the potential for former Roman slaves of East Asian descent (perhaps sold to the empire through the Huns) who might still retain those features.

Why not? It's not like you can be both, so doubling up wouldn't mean anything. And it makes a certain kind of sense IMO for the two to have a few things in common in terms of what they value, since there are Pagan Cymri living in Caledonia along with the Picts.

Vengeful could also make a good "flawed" virtue for Pagans.

As someone with a lot of respect for and interest in Buddhism (which shares this general idea that you want to divest yourself of entanglements and attachments to the world and attain liberation from the cycle of rebirth), that's always struck me as a vaguely troubling way to put it, or at least a very uncharitable one. But I guess that's just a personal hang-up.

I can't quite put it into words, but in general I feel like Lustful as a Pagan virtue works at least in part thanks to the recurring motif of stuff like the story of how Niall of the Nine Hostages first acquired the right to be High King: As a young man, Niall had several half-brothers, and his jealous step-mother wanted one of them to inherit his father's kingdom, so she had a bunch of tests to determine a successor, but Niall passed each one. One of these tests involved sending them all out hunting, and each one at some point wants to get water from a well guarded by a hideous hag (a loathly lady, if you will), who demands a kiss in return for water. All but one of Niall's brothers refuses to kiss her, and the one who does, Fiachrae, gives her only a quick peck that she tells him isn't enough. Niall kisses her good and proper, and the lady becomes a beautiful maiden, the personification of sovereignty over Ireland. She tells Niall that in addition to himself, 26 of his descendants will be High King, while Fiachrae's line will produce two High Kings, and his other brothers none. In line with this is that we're led to believe a lot of Celtic ceremonies/rituals regarding kingship and sovereignty included some symbolic gesture of fertility/virility on the monarch's part, with his rule being described in part as a marriage to the land or a sovereign goddess attached to it.

On the other hand, the idea that the world as we experience it is in some way "not real" and that you should devote your life to a lot of esoteric beliefs practices that you're told will allow you to transcend that is not a new one to humanity. It's mostly unusual in that the Dragonewts comprise an entire species and society, rather than small cults or spiritual traditions practiced at the margins of a more "orthodox" society whose beliefs they split off from. And, of course, the fact that Dragonewts will literally be reborn every time they die and other stuff that gives them a very different experience and perspective on stuff like mortality.

Personally, I think the most helpful thing to keep in mind when trying to portray Dragonewts is that, ultimately, everything they do is in pursuit of utuma. They seek transcendence beyond this world, which they see as just a dream they want to wake up from, but this is a very long, involved, multi-step process that requires a lot of esoteric (and I mean "esoteric" in the sense that it's not something that can be understood in the exoteric terms of rational or logical enquiry) steps be taken. Once you get that, you can justify almost all their weirdness as being something they've decided is a good way to work towards something they need for utuma, or as a byproduct of it. A good example of that is the well-known obsession Dragonewts have with avoiding becoming indebted to others, and with paying off whatever debts they do accrue as soon as possible. They see these debts as entanglements with the very world they're seeking ultimate escape from, and from that perspective it makes sense that Dragonewts really don't like being offered favors or gifts. This kind of logic also explains why Dragonewts actively avoid communicating with non-Dragonewts; at best, they think, you're wasting your time trying to explain this stuff to those who aren't ready to understand anything you're saying, and at worst you're opening yourself up to potential entanglements through dealing with those mired in the concerns of a world that isn't even real. But sometimes the pursuit of utuma means doing stuff that just plain makes no sense, much like really esoteric, mystical traditions IRL do and say things that most people don't really understand or just see as weird and absurd. And that's where you get weird stuff like a Dragonewt obsessively studying left-handed people or attacking anyone who whistles in their presence or something.

Which is, I think, a good step towards simulating the way it often worked in Malory, where IIRC it was directly explained at some point that a younger knight will often win afoot while the older knight will often win ahorse, because on foot you can better make up for inexperience with the vigor of youth. After all, it's not that hard for a relatively young knight to get one particular combat skill (usually Sword) pretty high, so between that and the fact that he's probably in better shape than an older knight, he has the advantage on foot. But on horse, you need to have high values in more than just a single skill, so the older, experienced knight (who thus has more skill points to spread out) is now the one who's probably at a distinct advantage.

Plus, as was already brought up, we departed the world of Malory long ago when we decided - specifically because people wanted to play them - that pagan knights could be chivalrous and heroic characters without being (or talking throughout their adventures about how much they want to become) converts to Christianity. That isn't any less changing the world (and values) of the old epics to suit a game being played by modern people than female knights are.

No, it's in there. It's an option for Occitanians, referring to a medieval legend that some of the lords of the city of Narbonne were Jewish.

Ah, I somehow forgot about that post. Thanks for bringing that back to my attention. Okay, having re-read that, honestly? Still not seeing it. The phrasing of "the default assumption is that some regions of Britain (such as Salisbury, the Red Castle, or Din Eidyn) are more accommodating to trailblazing women knights, while in other parts they are vanishingly rare" does not say to me that "she-knights will start now to be common in Salisbury." The words "more accommodating" don't necessarily mean total acceptance, and the description of them as trailblazers does not put me in mind of them being either common or entrenched even in those places. It sounds more like Salisbury is going to have some particular group/location like, say, Kenilworth Castle and its 30 or so female knights from Blood & Lust, to provide an easy way to explain your female knight in the default homeland for PKs. In that regard, it isn't really much different from how the Book of Knights & Ladies added two whole counties of loyal Picts and Saxons to Logres. It isn't really totally in keeping with the traditional portrayals for there to be whole counties' worth of Saxon and Pictish knights fighting for the Brits decades before Arthur's conquests (or in keeping with historical accuracy for there to be a significant population of Picts in the modern-day West Countries, for that matter), but it provides options for PKs who might want to play something outside that norm, so there they are. Obviously your feelings on it will be what they are, but to me this honestly sounds like much ado about nothing.

Is it clear that it's changed? There's an image of a male knight and a female knight, then the text explains that your group can give the pre-gen characters whatever names and genders they'd like to, and that's it. I don't really see what the fuss is about in either direction. It's an introductory scenario that will presumably be read and played by new players as well as old; why shouldn't they let people know that they can play a female knight if they'd like to?

There's also Britomart from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, the daughter of King Ryons who falls in love with a knight named Artegall after seeing a vision of him in a mirror, gets an enchanted spear and suit of armor from a captured Saxon warrior-queen and goes on adventures in Fairy Land with Arthur (here presented as a knight, yet with the story apparently set before he becomes a king) to find him.

Isn't that covered by this bit on pg. 2?

Part of the reason Salisbury is the default location for PKs is because it's close enough for visits to Winchester-Camelot but far enough away that it doesn't stop being special. That's a consideration you might want to have in mind for placing it, but other than that there's no reason you can't put it somewhere else if you'd like.

While yes, Uther is definitely a callous jerk, it also isn't his job to care. Player Knights are vavasours, the vassals of his vassals, who aren't in any direct relationship with the king and thus have no mutual obligations he has to consider. The PK on whose manor those peasants lived was the person primarily responsible for protecting them, and secondarily it falls on Count Roderick as the PK's liege from whom the manor was sub-infeudinated (and even then, Roderick caring enough to actually do stuff like bring this up to the king is shockingly nice of him, and implies the PKs are among his favorites). That's part of the whole feudal contract; when you're given that land and the produce of the peasants on it, you take up the duty of dealing with local threats. Unless there's a big army of Saxons coming your way, this whole thing is too small-time and too removed from the king for him to bother with. It sucks, and Uther could still do more about it if he felt like it, but at the same time that's a good object lesson in how feudalism works. Even Arthur probably wouldn't do much more beyond looking around at his assembled knights and going, "Missing babies? That sounds like an adventure. Anyone up for it?"

Well, if we're talking about a daughter for Arthur, here's an interesting one that I only found out about recently:

The difference to me is that, IMO, it doesn't really change who Kay is if he kills Loholt purely by mistake, he can still be the "sarcastic Kay full of bravado but faithful to his king," whereas with the False Guenevere, Arthur looks like either a horrible person or just the most gullible idiot who ever lived. It irrevocably changes the character for the worse. Plus, that whole episode just feels weird and out of place to me, like it's someone's contemporary political commentary they sneaked into an Arthurian tale.

Well, at least the GPC does poor Sir Kay a lot less dirty than Perlesvaus did. In the former, Kay does it on accident because it's dark and Loholt has passed out atop the giant's corpse, so Kay thinks he's just beheading a sleeping giant. Whereas in the latter he kills Loholt knowingly just to claim the credit. I actually think the former works well, because that kind of "you unknowingly did something horrible that you try to keep secret but it causes your ruin later" motif is pretty Arthurian. It's like Kay's own version of Arthur unknowingly committing incest. I feel like that only really became a major theme with the Vulgate and stuff that was strongly influenced by it; Loholt, for instance, is Arthur's legitimate son in both Lanzelet and Perlesvaus, but then is made into a bastard by the Vulgate. And as mentioned above, the Welsh gave Arthur four sons that we know of. And, for my own part, I honestly never really cared much either way about that particular aspect of it, so I don't feel all that attached to Arthur and Guenevere's marriage being childless. That said, I personally probably wouldn't cause the overall story to change all that much in the end; that is, Guenevere still commits adultery, Mordred still takes over, Camlann still happens. Really, I just think it's a much more powerful tragedy to see Arthur and Guenevere have children together but then outlive them all. Not for there to just be a vacant heir's throne forever, but to go from a big, happy family full of heirs that dwindles down to that vacant throne as the years go by. And it also provides more storytelling options to have children of Arthur and Guenevere who can be characters in their own right (and whose deaths can thus have an impact). Well, the first paragraph doesn't really apply to the GPC, which completely omits the "False Guenevere" episode and dates Arthur's three natural sons as all being conceived before he was ever married. And obviously anyone who wants to can put those back in, but personally I like it better that way. And yes, there are legitimate sons in other traditions, as I stated above I named the title of this thread after the four (presumably) legitimate sons he's accorded in the Welsh stories. To elaborate on them a bit: About Amhar (also rendered Amr or Anir) we know only that Arthur killed him (for reasons and under circumstances that are lost to us) and had him buried in what's now Archenfield; Nennius recounts this in the Historia Brittonum and claims that he visited Amhar's grave, which had the curious property of changing its size. He's also named as one of Arthur's four chamberlains in Geraint and Enid. We know even less of Gwydre, who is one of the casualties of the hunt for Twrch Trwyth in Culhwch and Olwen. As for Duran, he's only known from an obscure (possibly 15th century) manuscript that says he died at Camlann. In contrast to them, Llacheu (who might be the origin of Loholt) actually has enough bits left over for us to guess that he was actually a fairly important character at some point. He's accounted as one of the "Three Well-Endowed Men of the Island of Britain" in the Welsh Triads and fights alongside Cei in What Man is the Gatekeeper?, and Welsh poems of the 12th century and later also use him as a standard of comparison for heroism, much like Arthur himself.

The Great Pendragon Campaign gives us Borre and Loholt, two sons of Arthur (who were actually probably the same character just given different names by different authors), who are, in keeping with Mallory and that general tradition, illegitimate, because Arthur and Guenevere's marriage is childless, and both of them long predecease Arthur himself and leave behind no issue. The GPC also deliberately doesn't thrust these two in the spotlight, making it easy to make as much or as little of them as you'd like. In other works, though (including both the Welsh stories and also stuff like Perlesvaus), not only Borre/Loholt but other children of Arthur exist, several of whom are legitimate or at least aren't actually called illegitimate. There's a lot of children of Arthur to be found, both legitimate and illegitimate, and I found myself wondering what could be done with them in a campaign. Now, my question here is: Do you think something interesting could be done in a campaign where Arthur does have legitimate children by Guenevere? For one, I think even more of an obvious family tragedy than “there is no legitimate heir to Arthur's throne” would be “there are actually several, but they all predecease their parents in tragic circumstances and without any children (at least that anyone knows of/knows where to find).” (The name of the thread is just a play on the Quatre Fils Aymon I decided to make because the Welsh corpus gives Arthur four sons - not stated to be bastards, so I'm guessing they were legitimate - in all: Amhar, Llacheu, Gwydre, & Duran).

That works too, but I'd prefer the dark humor of, say, ruling that a fumble on their roll against an old guy they're trying to get info out of causes him to get so scared he dies of a heart attack in front of them, his face stuck in a rictus of pure horror, and now they either have to find some way to explain this or stash the body and get out before anyone starts asking questions.

In a scenario where you want them to give you information or perform a task I personally would handle it as "You do intimidate them, but you overdo it, and now they're too scared to do or say whatever it is you wanted out of them because they're too busy doing some combination of running/fainting/screaming/evacuating their smallclothes." So now you have to find a way to calm them down or go some other route of solving your problems. In a scenario where you want to scare them away or make them lose heart, like in combat, I would instead make it, "You do scare them, but their 'fight-or-flight' response picks 'fight' and their resolve stands firm, giving a penalty to further rolls to try to demoralize/scare them away."

IIRC, in Pendragon the Queen's Knights aren't a lifetime appointment like the Round Table, but something renewed yearly. There are knights who get their membership renewed yearly to the extent that it's basically a formality - Lancelot and Gawain in particular - but otherwise the membership varies by year. You can justify any knight with good courtly skills and Romantic inclinations (which I believe are the main requirements, rather than martial prowess or Glory).