Leingod

Except most RPGs don't let you play the movers and shakers of the setting whose actions decide the fate of entire kingdoms right out of character creation. How many adventuring careers start out with being the big decision-makers and power-brokers of a major war? The usual expectation is that you have to work your way up to that, and after all, the post-Dragonrise period is still only the beginning of the Hero Wars.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the PKs need to succeed on multiple rolls throughout these events to even get a whiff of the actual story that's going on with Gorlois's sudden rebellion (though of course the players are likely to know at least the gist already); most of Uther's followers wouldn't have been there when it happened, or wouldn't have had the opportunity to find out even what little the PKs potentially can, or just failed their rolls to do so. For example, when Uther first develops his lust for Ygraine, a PK has to succeed on some rolls even to notice that Uther is having that reaction (especially because a lot of people present are having that exact reaction anyway). Certainly even in-universe it's not hard to guess that Uther would want Ygraine once he's put down this rebellion; he's notoriously lusty, after all. But on the other hand, there's a difference between Uther being well-known to sleep around (and it's not until Ygraine, and also when Ygraine spurns him for letting Arthur be taken away, that he's ever stated to resort to sleeping with married women) and thinking that naturally leads into this whole war that's going on even as the Saxons continue to be a major threat in the east being solely as a result of Uther wanting to kill Gorlois and take his wife. EDIT: Now, the people closest to Uther, and who know him best, will probably know or at least suspect what's going on, but those are the people most likely to be blindly loyal to Uther anyway, and unlikely to spread around anything that could discredit their king. Ulfius might try to convince Uther to see sense in private, for example, but he's 100% in Uther's corner the whole way regardless.

And given the importance of land ownership in the feudal system, that should really be the sort of thing that essentially ensures their lord is in their corner for life, more or less, so you could probably have one or two moments where their lord comes through for them in some kind of clutch situation where he wouldn't normally have to if the PKs get in over their heads. Give it some kind of big narrative payoff down the road, you know?

As for me, I first got exposed through King of Dragon Pass, then years later discovered the tabletop stuff through Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and then worked backward through older HeroWars stuff before ever touching any RuneQuest material, so it's perhaps to be expected that the focus on Sartar with recent material that some groan about doesn't bother me in the slightest, though I'm definitely appreciative of other locales as I've found them.

That it did.

Yeah, that's a good point. It's certainly notable that not just Ulfius, but also Brastias's predecessor as the leader of Uther's household knights (whose name escapes me) are noted as being friends Uther made in his time in Brittany, and there's no mention at all of any deeds of Uther's until he starts leading raids against the Saxons after the March of Aurelius. Model warrior-noble he is, I'm sure Uther rankled mightily at being left behind while his brother and his own little circle hogged all the glory and avenged their father and older brother without him. That kind of fits with how it seems to me like Merlin's prominence comes partly to offload/externalize all the earlier magic powers associated with the Pendragons. Aurelius/Emrys was originally the one who revealed the dragons to Gorlois, after all, and in the Welsh tradition Uther was named one of the mightiest magicians of Britain. Maybe there was an earlier version of the story Geoffrey told where Uther just uses his magic to take the form of Ygraine's husband and sleep with her, with no Merlin and no siege.

Even earlier, I'd say; the bios in the Book of Sires paint a picture of two men who rubbed each other the wrong way from the very start. Gorlois first befriended Aurelius Ambrosius in 457, at which time he "tolerates the younger prince, Uther, albeit barely."

Yes, but that specific wording isn't really the important part to me. What I was trying to get at is that Pavis isn't considered a rune/divine cult in HeroQuest.

True, but it's specifically noted as being "a result of Lord Pavis's experiments in the Second Age" and it can only be used within the boundaries of Pavis (both Old and New) and only to do two things: placate beings who share the Man Rune, and reproduce with beings who share the Man Rune. Everything else you can learn from the Pavis cult is all sorcery. So, even though Pavis does provide some kind of rune magic, it's noted as being this weird edge case that comes about as much from his weird EWF-inspired experiments as normal theistic sources. It's also notable that an affinity with the Man Rune (or any Rune) isn't at all necessary to become an initiate or even a devotee/priest in the Cult of Pavis. Moreover, there's a box titled "Isn't This A Wizardry School Under the HeroQuest Rules?" in that cult write-up. And the very first word under that is "Yes."

In HeroQuest, at least, the worship of Pavis grants no magic, but his cult teaches sorcery through grimoires. The same goes for Flintnail.

No, they don't, because otherwise you get exactly what you're describing here. Not as sure about this one, but I think they get the -10 and the Melancholy doesn't set in until after it's over.

More or less, yes. Rereading Tournament of Dreams, the designer's notes for the "Adventure of the Circle of Gold" note that the inspiration came from reading the 15th century D'Armagnac Armorial, which has a lot of obscure names that happened to include a certain "Valet au Cercle d'Or" and also a "Sir Patrides au Cercle d'Or." It's suggested these and others were essentially made up to pad out lists of RTKs with lots of interesting and evocative names. And given the trials you have to overcome to attain the Circle of Gold, the Glory that comes from getting and keeping it, and the fact that the only way given in the adventure for the king to be able to travel freely is for him to swear fealty to King Arthur, it certainly makes sense that you'd find a PK who managed to pull all of that off on the Round Table sooner rather than later.

I had to look up what a "doddle" is, but that's great to hear and I learned something.

The way I figured it is that everyone wants to stay in Prax, because it's nicer, so what often happens is that they'll stay until someone else forces them out into the Wastes so they can have the nicer grazing lands, and then they stay there until they're strong enough to beat up someone else (possibly but not necessarily the ones who kicked them out beforehand) and force themselves back into Prax and repeat the cycle. This usually isn't something decided by all-out war that leads to lots of bodies on both sides, of course, because that just weakens both sides, so it's probably decided by things like raids and magical contests and ritual combat between champions and such. But that's just My Glorantha.

That's the likely outcome. But it's important to remember that "There is always another way," especially when PCs get involved.

1. Hence "empires are bad" being something I'd consider an entirely valid argument. 2. Sartar was doing a pretty good job of building cities and roads, minting its own coins, and engaging in trade without needing to be the possession of an empire, so to argue that the slaughters at Boldhome and Runegate, for example, are justified or at least ameliorated because that means more money for the Sartarites in the long run... eh. I'm not convinced. Most of Sartar seemed to be doing just fine for itself, and the argument that it was for their own good that they be conquered and forcibly assimilated is getting perilously close to "White Red Man's Burden" rhetoric. 3. As to the argument elsewhere that Argrath's empire was worse than the Lunar one and that they were thus the ones in the right or at least less in the wrong, while that's not entirely wrong, IMO there's something important in the fact that Argrath and his empire were, in many ways, created by the actions and policies the Lunar Empire pursued in Dragon Pass. That's not to say the Lunars are somehow directly responsible for the actions and policies of Argrath's empire, but I think it's important to realize those (and the anti-Lunar sentiment a lot of them arose from) didn't emerge out of a vacuum.

Frankly, Gorlois is doomed either way, whether he gets cut down in the field, dies "of his wounds" in custody, or gets sentenced to death. EDIT: As for Madoc, even if he somehow survives the Battle of St. Albans and the Infamous Feast, you can just have him briefly rally Logres behind him only to get cut down by the Saxons. Maybe that leaves your players a bit more time to get ready for the Anarchy, and you can thus reward their actions without necessarily causing a huge change in the narrative.

Because policies like the forced relocations of entire populations when they object to the whole "being conquered" thing and such just isn't enough when it isn't happening right there in Dragon Pass, I suppose.

I would say the interesting thing is how appealing it seems to be to people to try to create a god who can be and do all the changes they want to see in the world for them rather than try to become the god (or man!) who can make those changes. But maybe I'm just reaching.

Only a very brief treatment in the Book of Knights & Ladies for characters who want to be adventuring in Britain from there. If you want to be a Byzantine, Italian, etc., there's a short table that lists major events so you can use them for "Previous Experience" and inherited Glory and such. But even there it usually doesn't go further back than the late 400s because it only cares about the stuff that synchs up with the timeline of what's happening in Britain (i.e. the Byzantine one only starts in 476 with Zeno taking power because that's close to the default start date of 485).

Notice I didn't say "Pavis County is a tribe and its council is a tribal ring," I said "The Sartarite settlers living there probably see it as 'close enough,' in that it does most of the same things, that there isn't really a reason for them to form a tribe. So you wouldn't have Loyalty (Tribe) in Pavis, but Loyalty (City)." Pavis: Gateway to Adventure says that the wyter for both Old and New Pavis (which are considered "the same" city magically to allow this, with New Pavis being referred to as "Pavis Outside the Walls" as a sort of extension of the original city) is in fact Lord Pavis himself.

The way I imagine how a Sartarite mindset would see/equate it in their mind is that Pavis County is their "tribe." The actual ruling council of Pavis is the tribal ring, since they fulfill much the same duty that an actual tribe would fulfill, mediating conflicts between different clans and giving them all a voice and so on. So instead of Loyalty (Tribe), a Pavisite would have Loyalty (Pavis) instead.

Plus there's already stuff like the Gorakiki Dragonfly cult selling its services to deal with the giant mosquito problem in Corflu.

One of the strictures of a Wind Lord of Orlanth is literally that they must fight Chaos (and chant a challenge even if the Chaos monster can't understand human language) wherever they find it, with the only outs being stuff like "If you can't handle it on your own, you're allowed to leave to go find help." So on a pretty fundamental level a major and widely-worshiped aspect of Orlanth (i.e. Orlanth Adventurous) is bound up in fighting Chaos. Just because he isn't as obsessive and single-minded about it as his brother isn't the same thing as "there's room for coexistence," unless you're willing to count cases where the Orlanthi just aren't strong enough to wipe out whatever well-established nest of Chaos is around. Which I don't, because that's like calling the Sartarites who were just waiting with clenched teeth for the first opportunity to start chopping off Lunar heads as "coexisting" with the Lunars.

Why should the regalia have to mean the same thing as it does IRL? The Orb of Authority represents the sun/Yelm, which in the Yelmic view is the ultimate source of sovereignty and dominion.