Morien

38 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Apart from the White Horse what adventures do you recommend for a glorious and a squire in the 501 year? Preferably in Salisbury, as the knight is the seneschal...

Mysterious Manor might work. Light on battle, heavy on talking to people. (Adjusting to the time and location, of course... No Brus sans Pitie yet.)

Birthday Hunt from Dragons of Britain #1, with some adjustments (Robert is too young but maybe some other noteworthy youth in Salisbury?).

3 hours ago, ZedAlpha said:

G's decided that our new Angus is thirsty to prove himself every bit the legend that his grandfather and great-grandfather were.

Very nice. 🙂

7 hours ago, ZedAlpha said:

It makes sense why they're all in the middle of the Forest Sauvage, serving as household knights to an impoverished old warhorse like Ector: they don't have anywhere to go. 

Well, impoverished might be a bit of a stretch, if he can support up to half a dozen knights. That puts him very much in the 1% bracket. 🙂

27 minutes ago, ZedAlpha said:

The main question I'd have would be whether or not it'd be fictionally appropriate for a non-titled knight like Ector to have other non-titled knights as his servants/vassals, or if it'd be more appropriate to make him the Lord of Tribuit before it vanished under the trees?

Absolutely not a problem for Ector to have household knights, if his estate is big enough to support them. Actual vassals is a bit more problematic unless you wish to up his power level... I would be more inclined to make those neighbors, instead. Still, it is possible to be a Lord Knight (i.e. a knight with other knights as vassal), without a higher title.

One nice advantage of playing household knights... you do what the boss tells you to do. Makes it much easier for new players, and keeps the estate management time down.

EDIT:
And of course you can introduce heiresses in need of rescue, or even having their fathers or older brothers die suddenly, and they get to inherit a manor. Or better yet, you can have Arthur rewarding them with lands in 513 or something like that.

In KAP canon, Sir Ector is in Pennlyn, a small kingdom in the northern Cambria. You can download The Great Hunt adventure for free, where the climax happens in (one of) Sir Ector's holdings. However, that is nothing more than a location, nothing else is said. But you do have stats for (an older) Sir Ector there.

As for the estate, you are probably better off coming up with your own ideas, especially since you are setting it in Forest Sauvage.

Also, the Sir Ector of The Sword in the Stone is rather... ahem... different from the much more calm Sir Ector of Malory.

I say, go with your own ideas, make it as wacky and preposterous as you want, and godspeed!

Your Pendragon Will Vary was Greg's favorite answer to these types of questions. 🙂

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

BTW, my historian friend said thet there was cases of kingdoms where kings had no demesne whatsoever, relying solely on vassal support...

No demesne whatsoever? Apart from some palace princes/kings of late Merovingian dynasty, where the de facto control of the kingdom was in the hands of the Carolingian mayors of the palace, none come to mind off-hand. Even the early Capet Kings had Paris.

It is true that the early Capetians and the early Habsburgs were very much the small fish in a big pond, with vassals who were mightier than they were. So it is not totally out of place to have a kingdom where vassal might even be stronger than the King. However...

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

Not sure it would be good from players perspective, but it seems that relatively smaller demesne would be more interesting from world building perspective - less high noblesse, more knight, less intrigue, more adventuring, smaller societal gap...

It would be better from play balance perspective, sure, and keeping everyone on the Vassal Knight level. However, it would be strange to call this guy a King, then, when his demesne is that of a vassal knight.

12 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

Well, your original post was about kingdom, however small one 😅 but demesne-to-enfeoffed proportions for different titles is indead interesting question.

Fair enough. 🙂 It would be a bit strange to have 5 vassal knights of £10 each, and the "King of the Red City" with the city itself of £10, though.

3 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

I would go with a little barony, with 5 enfeodded manors of 10 £ each (the suroundings) and a main demesne of 80 £ (the Red City itself). So, it's a beautiful reward, but still manageable without breaking the game.

Sure, if you wanted to go with the 'minimum possible', and keep the PKs roughly on the Vassal Knight level, with the leader elevated on an estate holder level.

Mind you, this would solve the geographical issues, too, as you can easily explain a small domain like this away. 🙂

2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

  BTW, that also interesting question - demesne of William the Conqueror was just 17% of kingdom. And this was a guy who goes out of his way to ensure advantage over his vassals...

A King is different from a Baron. More interesting would be to look at how much subinfeudation was going on in English baronies, and how did that evolve with time.

Interestingly, subinfeudation was ended by Edward I, in 1290: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_Emptores

2 hours ago, AlHazred said:

Looking at the adventure, it looks like the Red City is meant to be a small kingdom, with 5 fiefdoms. That might not even be as profitable as a regular baronetcy.

I took those five fiefs to simply be those that were enfeoffed and available as prizes to the other PKs. If we go by KAP 4 scaling of bannerets, you'd expect about 50/50 split, so the 'kingdom' might be a small one with a £50 demesne and £50 enfeoffed manors, for a total of £100. However, if we go with BotW scaling of 10-20% enfeoffed, this would give the size of the full kingdom somewhere between £250 and £500. So about a regular baronial honour of £300 or so.

Given that the usurpers' army is 25 knights and 100 foot soldiers, about £300 would be in line of that. However, it is said that they are not popular rulers, hinting that the true power of the kingdom would be more. I would not go above £500 in any case, and even that might be a bit difficult to explain, given the geography. Unless you wish to invoke the Enchantment of Britain and have most of the Red City actually exist in Faerie, which is likely the case for the Kingdom of the Circle of Gold, given its geographical size (several days journey across) and isolation (traveling needed to even get to the border).

In the end, it is up to the GM, how big he wants to make it. If this is a climax of a story of a Glorious PK, who is retiring afterwards, I don't mind going big. It might be a bit more of an issue if the PK will continue to be active in play, since he has such a huge power base and a title that he would loom over the other PKs. If this has been more of an enterprise of equals, I would rather go for breaking up the kingdom, with each PK getting a £100 estate or something out of it, joined together in common defense. This would keep everyone on the same footing, but definitely reward them for their efforts.

Yeah, the context of the adventure is clearly post-Badon Arthurian times, with Marrok being a Round Table Knight. It is also geographically located near Camelot. Now, you can change all that easily enough, but it is still a rather big jump. I mean, I could see Uriens' court try to make a pelt out of the wolf.

9 minutes ago, SirUkpyr said:

How would folks suggest I handle it if my PKs want to negotiate or talk?

They have this odd habit of talking to the bad guys - and I can see this being one such circumstance.

Easiest to make it a Merciful or Forgiving vs. the Giants' Love Family, I'd think.

59 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

How do you manage the "programmed death" of the NPCs? I'm asking because I don't want my players to know when their relatives are going to die, of course! Do you make secret rolls?

I'd roll in secret and make a note for myself when each of them is supposed to die, if nothing else happens. Sort by death year (in Excel or Google Sheets) and hey presto, you have an easy checklist year by year.

30 minutes ago, vegas said:

I do assume the heir, spare, prayer roles for the first three kids of NPC families

Emphasis on NPC families. Things of course varied.

It can be a pretty interesting background for a PK, too.

An example of Gilbert Marshal, the 3rd son of the famous William Marshal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Marshal,_4th_Earl_of_Pembroke

Gilbert was probably on a clerical career, when the death of his older brother Richard meant that he was now the heir to the earldom of Pembroke. He was knighted and then given the title.

Gilbert's younger brothers, Walter and Ansel, were both raised to be knights and had been left with lands in their father's will.

23 minutes ago, vegas said:

Why do it this way? First it is more accurate (though imperfect) because 85% of childhood deaths do happen that early and they are not spread out evenly every year from age 1-20 as BoEstate has it. Second I am sensitive to how many rolls the game asks us to make for NPCs and I am looking to cut down on bookkeeping and rolls where I can.

1st: Yeah, BotE has a flat distribution from 2 to 21, with a high (10% mortality) peak for infants (i.e. the first year). I think we had a 1-5 column in one of the drafts, but since we didn't want to be constantly changing the second roll (which is a simple 1-5 or 1-10), we couldn't really make that work and simplified it to 1-5 throughout to get that 30% total mortality in the end.

2nd: Yeah, I am totally with you on that. Especially if you are trying to stick to the 1 session = 1 year, rolling loads of 1d20s for the NPCs is way too much. That's why the lifespan table is a very nice addition. 🙂 I don't think I adopt it for our campaign, as the relatives have been dropping dead often enough as it is from the system I already have in place, but I'd definitely consider it otherwise.

29 minutes ago, vegas said:

And while I have your attention, Morien, let me just write a thank you for all the resources you have posted: the thread on childbirth, your house rules, your suggestions for supplements. I am a Pendragon noob and I found your posts enormously helpful in getting up to speed efficiently on the game and the rough edges to think about. Thank You!

Thank you, very kind of you to say. Glad that they have been helpful; that is what they are there for, and do feel free to ask any questions either here or in Discord; if it is a quick rule question or some such, Discord is fine, but Forum is better for longer discussions. 🙂

I started my own Pendragon GMing career back in late 1990s, armed with 4th edition rulebook, The Boy King, and Warren Mockett's campaign outline that covered 503 - 510s (I want to say 515, but I am not sure anymore; alas, I have lost the file and the printout got thrown out half a dozen moves ago). That campaign outline was very helpful to me as a new KAP GM, so contributing by advising new KAP GMs is a way to pay it forward. Not to mention I very much like talking about Pendragon, as is no doubt obvious by now. 🙂

Pretty neat. The Survival Table in particular can be very useful, getting rid of the yearly rolls for the NPCs.

I have my own Family Events system where I roll just once for the death in the family (that is, unrelated to everything else going on), which has the downside that only one 'accidental' death may occur any given year. On the other hand, we have had people die in duels, wars, etc. as well, so it is not so bad, and keeps me sane.

The Book of the Estate Family Survival system does include the standard of living modifiers for the kids, but only on the second roll (see p. 14). It would be easy enough to extend that to the adults, too.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

When does lady Jenna marry?

Whenever that happens in your game; there is no canonical date that I know of. In the Marriage of Count Roderick, Jenna is born in 484, so she would be turning 11 during 495, and no doubt a valuable marriage alliance possibility during Anarchy. It would actually make a lot more sense for Prince Mark to court Jenna rather than the almost past her childbearing years Countess, who has no claim to Salisbury, while Jenna is the heiress to everything if something were to happen to Robert. Jenna should probably marry around 500-505, based just on her age.

In our campaign, Sir Blains got killed at the Infamous Feast, and a personal recurring Levcomagus baddie seized the stewardship and invaded eastern Salisbury. He offered to returm those manors and an alliance in return for Jenna's hand in marriage (after she grew up a bit more), which the PKs recommended the Countess to take. This came to bite them in the fundament when they sided with Cornwall later on, and ended up in a very brutal feud with Levcomagus. And then Robert died during Arthur's reunification wars, leaving that Levcomagus guy with loads of personal beef with the PKs as the rightful ruler of Salisbury by the right of his wife. The Battle of Terrabil for the PKs was not about whether or not Arthur would win (they were fighting against him), but whether or not they would be able to get to this Levcomagus guy and kill him on the field of battle, hoping that widowed Jenna would be less anti-PKs. Well, turns out that they missed their goal by a hair (they got him to like -4 HP, but First Aid is a thing, and his bodyguards managed to roll the remaining PKs up). This lead to them being stripped of their lands and exiled to Cornwall (after some pleading from the lone PK who had switched sides a couple of years back and saved the Levcomagus guy's life, as well as now King Mark willing to pay double ransom for his favorite knights).

I have heard of campaigns where she has been married off to Cynric or to Prince Alain, and of course one common course is a usurping PK marrying her and taking Salisbury for himself and his cronies.

58 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

What do you think (as you recommended not to use the Savage Forest during the Anarchy) to run some adventures related to the Forest of Gloom/Glamour? 

Yes, that works as a good substitute and is right outside Salisbury. Besides, in BotW, there is clearly some friction there, what with the neighboring hundreds having been part of Summerland. The peasants there could easily be 'weird', still. Suspicious of outsiders, etc.

21 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

It's the end of 500, next year 501. Next year I'm planning to run the wedding of Morgan using for the first time the BoFeasts so I think it will be a nice chance for the squire to do things.

Yes. 502 is not a particularly 'busy' year, either, by which I mean there are no big battles or such. You should be able to throw more 'social' adventures at the Players, or testing ones. Especially if the Squire's family characteristic is something useful that the Glorious Knight doesn't have, such as Hunting or Faerie Lore. Faerie-related adventures might work well, since they tend to rely more on traits than skills, and this would even the playing field between the Glorious Knight and the Squire. If you have not run the Adventure of the White Horse (3rd and 4th edition rulebooks), that could be a good one. I'd make sure that the Squire gets to ride his father's Charger or something for that adventure, though.

7 hours ago, creativehum said:

I ask only because it seems like I might be offering more Glory for the quest of a multi-year campaign. You get 250 Glory for killing a lion. I think this tale is worthy of more than that -- knocking down villains, bringing stability to the troubled isle, saving the sister-in-law of Duke Ulfius -- but that might be just me.

Well, depends.

You get that 250 Glory for defeating the lion by yourself. That is pretty darn impressive.

Sure, if those two PKs go by themselves and beat all the usurpers in single combats, and single-handedly restore the Countess, that would be pretty impressive. However, they likely did not do so, but had loads of help, even if they were the primary movers behind it. And whether that 500-600 Glory is combined (hence x2 the lion) or individual (x4 - x5 the lion), it is in any case much more than just the lion.

When we played through the "Of Allies & Enemies", one PK took down 6 enemy knights (and causing the remaining two to flee), four of them after all the other PKs were already down. The other PKs would have been captured were it not for him, likely dooming the reconquest effort. He got loads of glory for that and a granted manor in Rydychan. The Player is still talking about it even though it happened at the start of 2015 and about 50 years ago in game time. 🙂

This would be the reason why I usually ensure that each PK family starts with three brothers spread about 7 years apart. The eldest is the PK and the other two are the spares. Once the first generation is finished, there are often cadet branches established by these younger brothers, ensuring that there are plenty of interesting cousins to play while the main branch heir grows up. And makes it much harder for the whole family to die out. 

But to bring this back to your question, you kinda shot yourself in the foot by allowing for a 50 year old uncle to start with. If the Player wants to play a squire, let him. A couple of years and some heroics on his part, and he is ready to get knighted at 18.

Since you have only two players, this is no problem whatsoever. Frankly, make him the squire of the other, glorious PK, and watch hilarity ensue. You can easily, easily throw appropriate adventures for such a pair for a couple of years, such as the knight interacting with the noble host and hostess, while the squire gossips with the other squires and even servants.

Servitium debitum is not a problem. The old uncle takes vows and retires to a monastery, and the liege, already the legal guardian of the heir, simply makes up for the lack with one of his household knights.

What year is this happening?

36 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

I've never been  so mean to my players 😀 I usually consider that their peasants who directly pay this kind of taxes.

To be honest, I have not really been nasty enough, either, about this. But it is for the vassals to pay for their liege, not for the vassal's peasants (except indirectly, by Squeezing and such).

I see KAP 5.1 already specifies 'primary holding'. I wonder why? It doesn't seem right that if the liege grants an additional manor to a vassal, he doesn't get the Universal Aid out of it. I choose to read this that 'primary' in this case means 'holding held in vassalage from this lord'.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

Or do they must spend all (% of SoL of the manor and the officer's pay bonus) for the SoL??

By RAW, yes.

However, you are the GM. If you want them to have some more spending money (and in particular since this is Anarchy and money is tight as it is*), you might let them save some of it or spend it on like extra soldiers or something.

* Note also that due to it being the Anarchy (loss of trade, outliers, need for more knights and soldiers, need to pay tribute), the Countess might not be able to afford the same pay bonus as the Count could in the good old days of Uther. Really depends what the situation is in your campaign.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

So, the PKs obtained the victory on the Rydychan campaign and the baroness Gwendolyn gifted them with the manor they held there (just a 10L manor).

But that seems a poor reward as they spent too much money and resouces from their private trasure so the Countess Ellen should also reward them in some way, so, what dou you think about one of these options:

What do you think?

They were helping the Baroness, not the Countess. Hence, it is for the Baroness to reward them. A granted manor each in Rydychan sounds like a good reward (depending just how much money they spent), and also ensures that they are there to help the Baroness in the future, too...

On the other hand, if they are glorious knights already, it could be that they are deserving of officerships anyway in Salisbury. Especially if they are of proven loyalty to the Countess, and having just proven their skills as commanders in Rydychan.

17 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

How could they possibly reunite £50 from scratch?

Who says it is from scratch? They know how old Robert is. The talk about the knighting ought to start happening like the previous year. They likely have loot etc. They can start gathering money. They can Squeeze. They can raid, hire themselves (and their household knights) as mercenaries, etc.

With great power comes great responsibility.

4 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

When count Robert is knighted, do the PKs have to pay the value of their main manor (that is, £10) or the value of all of their holdings (for example if one PK has 5 manors he will pay £50 😱)??

All the manors they hold from Robert. If they hold 5 manors of £10 each, yes, this means £50.

And if they are very Loyal (16+), especially if they are also Famously Generous, they might even pitch in from their other manors.