Morien

I am not sure I follow you... A steward is a position, not really a title any more than a butler is. Just because you are the steward, it gives you no rights over the manor you oversee. You can be totally unconnected from the family that owns the manor. Maybe you were using steward in the sense of 'the spouse who looks after the manor while the knight spouse focuses on fighting'. Even then you would be incorrect, as the widow is only entitled to one-third as Widow's Portion for life, not for the whole manor of her late husband. If she is an heiress, then it would be the guardian who gets the control. However, at least in that case, I could see the woman getting more independence in a less historically attuned game. But I still don't get what Blains has to do with Elaine's manors. If she is the heiress of manors belonging to Levcomagus, then her marriage to someone else doesn't change the liege-vassal relationship of those manors: the manors are still enfeoffed from Levcomagus, not from Salisbury, and whoever becomes the knight has to swear fealty to Levcomagus for them.

OK, I wasn't sure if you had ran into it. And this way, anyone who is interested in Ganieda will get a reminder/heads up that the article exists. And everyone else who isn't aware of the free magazine (#1 - #4) can go and download it for free. Some good stuff in there. And it is free. Did I mention that already?

You might be interested in the Ganieda article in Dragons of Britain #1: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121452/The-Dragons-of-Britain-1

Interesting article here related to that: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive However, from GPC perspective, 530s are supposed to be the Golden Age in Logres, continuing to 540s until the Yellow Pestilence. So simply thematically, I would hesitate dropping a famine or two on it.

And he is the son of the robber knight as well, which would make him the heir? Forget about the wife/widow/mother, it is the PK who is the heir and the beneficiary of the robbery, presumably. It is he who will deal with any blood feud that might result. So is this already out in the open, in public? Or the Mom has just confessed to the son that oh, by the way, that charger you are riding came from your Dad's highway robbery proceedings? In the former, I would expect the PK to do his damnest to settle the thing, pay the money that was robbed + blood price, and try to get this thing to go away ASAP. If the latter, find out what happened to the man's family, and then try to make amends. Up to and including offering to take the merchant's son (if one of them is young enough) as a squire and train and equip him as a knight. Why? Again, the woman did no crime here. Presumably the PK still has Love Family passion, and it would take hell of a lot to disown your own mother! Sure, if she were, let's just take an example at random, sleeping with the son of the man who killed your father and whose house you have a vendetta against... (Although I would claim that particular event would be more of a fumble in Love Family...)

If it were right after the fact and like the traveller's horse that is identifiable by its markings or a wagon of wool that he bought just in the nearby market town, etc, sure, that is pretty easy to prove and recover. However, in this case, it was money, several years ago, already spent on other things (whether consumables or something else). That is when it gets very dicey. How can you prove that the victim had X libra in his pocket when he was killed? Granted, the widow in question might be making a full confession here, since she is already admitting to knowing that the money in question was stolen, so maybe they are able to nail that down. In which case, paying at least that as compensation from whatever inheritance the robber knight left behind + some as blood price would be just.

What was her crime? She was still obeying her husband.

There is that, but this would be unlikely to involve the PK, unless... (more about this below) Sure, but if this is a court case, he is unlikely to sit in judgement. He would be unlikely to champion the merchant's son (if that is even allowed). I could see him defending the widow, though. So this is to say that I can see two options here, legal and extralegal. 1) Legal: The merchant's son buys some justice by having someone reasonably well connected (one of Uther's bruisers?) to act as the front man. They are attempting to try the widow as an accessory to the murder, claiming that she was a party to planning the ambush and encouraging her husband to do it. Of course they have very little in the way of proof, but with one of Uther's favorites making the charge, no one is that eager to defend her (in particular if she lacks a liege of her own other than the King who is not interested, perhaps already distracted by Ygraine or sick in 494). Time for her to find a champion to defend her good name in a trial by combat, i.e. enter the PK. This is pretty high stakes, though, since if the PK loses, they probably both get executed, and if he wins, he has made a powerful 'friend' at court. 2) Extralegal: The merchant's son hires some mercs and sets out to take revenge & compensation. The PKs show up, possibly prior to the mercs & their employer, and the sudden increase in garrison's combat power leads to negotiations. In this case, I could every well see the PKs acting as judge & jury. Naturally, in this case the widow would need to be living at the holding still, rather than be at the liege's court, but that is possible, especially if she is an older lady. One of my favorite things to do is to really highlight Uther's neglect of his royal duties from 491 onwards, especially after his duel with Argan & his sickness. Basically, with Uther either besotted with Ygraine or sick in bed, the court favorites have pretty much free reign for graft and other corruption. Even up to kidnapping heiresses from their fathers and trying to forcibly marry them, which makes for an excellent encounter for the PKs to get involved in. Uther's Thug Trio are my suspects of choice for this, but other Thugs or even court officers would work, too. This also gets some use out of all those NPCs, and might get the PKs involved with the Court or worried whether they dare to interfere, given the trouble they might get into => roleplay and choices and consequences!

How is it even up to the PK? He is very unlikely to be a party to this case, after all. In any case, you can't try the wife for the crime of the husband. If this is Uther Period, a mere merchant's son would be unlikely to get any sympathy. A knight would be on a firmer footing, claiming revenge for his father if nothing else and escalating to a family feud unless compensation is paid.

The Players roll and they get some sense from their rolls (bad neutral good manorial luck, fumbled harvest etc) but we don't check the tables there and then since that would defeat the purpose of saving time. We play online so it is pretty quick to roll and record a stack of dice. I mean, the players could go in and find the PDFs and read the results if they truly wanted to, but generally these are minor results so I doubt any of them bother. Frankly if the family event is that the cousin got another kid, that only shows up in the winter phase summary email. It would only show up in the session if there is a reason for them to seek a cousin out and I decide that this would add some colour to the encounter by having the cousin's pregnant wife/mistress around.

That's pretty much how we do it, too. We roll the next year's winter phase rolls at the end of the current year, and then the GM (me) can use the downtime to match the rolls to the events (Expanded Manorial Luck and Expanded Family Events). Then I tend to sprinkle the events and news around the upcoming year, or even make a bigger adventure about it if it is important enough (recent example: a newly born baby of one of the PKs was switched to a changeling, which was discovered when the babe was to be baptised). The huge advantage of doing it this way is that it allows the GM to weave the event into the narrative, rather than just spring it on the player at the winter phase with nothing the player can do about it. Also, it is easier for the GM since you usually have a week or more between sessions to think about your dastardly schemes, rather than having to come up with one on the fly. I very much recommend this approach.

Or the PKs are simply using 'equivalent' titles. Saxon thegns & heorthgeneats = knights and ealdorman = baron. After all, it is not as if the PKs are actually calling themselves 'knights' in English, either.

Agreed. The wife would be in the clear as for the murder. Even if she knew about it, it would be difficult to claim she is responsible for her husband's crime. Reclaiming the stolen money + bloodprice of sorts from the knight's heirs if the traveller was high status enough. If the traveller's family is not influential enough (and presumably not local) then they might have an uphill battle at the courts. How do we know how much money was robbed and it was years ago... A lot depends on the judge too. Just is not very high during Uther Period and a lot of bad stuff happens during Anarchy.

Well, given the description as an exemplar Germanic Pagan, he ought to have Generous 16+ and a reputation for it. So I could easily see Arthur giving him his share and suggesting that he spend the money 'wisely to show his remorse'. But then leave it up to the PK, awarding checks depending how much he spends to Charity. Assuming he truly has strong Loyalty Arthur as well, he probably needs no more nudging than that to show his Generosity. The risk of the 'tempting monk' is that I would not put it past the Germanic Pagan to get offended by the suggestion and split the monk's skull with an axe.

Oh, that last link about medieval dogs also had a link to this powerpoint presentation: https://studioloperyn.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/dogs20140719.pdf

A bit of googling about cats revealed this link: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1387/cats-in-the-middle-ages/ And there would be this book, too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Cats-Kathleen-Walker-Meikle/dp/0712358188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364915481&sr=8-1 The companion volume for the dogs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Dogs-Kathleen-Walker-Meikle/dp/0712358927/ref=pd_cp_14_2/262-9880837-6073169?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0712358927&pd_rd_r=20c1e836-b15f-4c9d-b251-7cd25473557e&pd_rd_w=ZibcR&pd_rd_wg=qaME6&pf_rd_p=1ed602c2-81bc-4963-a32e-87d65a0bdbac&pf_rd_r=DFSAX6WCW6YJG375X1KT&psc=1&refRID=DFSAX6WCW6YJG375X1KT And pets in general: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Pets-Kathleen-Walker-Meikle/dp/1843837587/ref=pd_sim_14_1/262-9880837-6073169?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1843837587&pd_rd_r=f4f85854-0103-4260-8408-0fb896db3ed8&pd_rd_w=dDbgj&pd_rd_wg=nnlci&pf_rd_p=32ad4a08-4896-4172-a2ea-821c9be00310&pf_rd_r=572HP48CC096SW9RFKRE&psc=1&refRID=572HP48CC096SW9RFKRE While I don't know for a fact, I would not expect a lot of differentiation between the cat breeds in Medieval England. Dogs, however, would already show different breeds, although as with horses, it would be a classification more by function: http://medievaldogs.info/index.php?title=Medieval_Dog_Breeds As for pets, I think I would go for more with the story/plot: A nun might have a generic cat as a companion, a lady would be more likely to have a lapdog, and an enchantress might have a black cat. And a lord would have hunting dogs, some of the favored ones might be also companion animals inside the hall. A commoner might have a mutt.

Presumably, the PKs would be in for a share of the treasure as a reward? Arthur could command the Germanic Pagan to use his share to give alms to the poor, which would definitely be good for a Generous check, helping to balance out the Selfish Check. Given that Generous is one of the Germanic Pagan Traits (BoK&L), this would be good for the character too.

Except that the adventure doesn't do that. The PKs are supposed to side with the Romans against the Saxons, so no problem as far as the adventure is concerned. Not only that, but... the PKs are not really even supposed to negotiate with 'the bad guys'. This would play almost the same if the invaders were Cymri from Garloth or Malahaut, just without the PKs benefitting from their Hate or getting their Hate triggered. It will end up in the same 'Bash the Enemy' situation, unless the PKs chicken out and run from the adventure.

Yep. I mean, in consideration, one could switch out the Angles/Saxons for other Cymri like from Malahaut, but it wouldn't change the adventure. The aggressors are so moustache-twirling evil for the lulz that it is still pretty clear who is in the right here. Now, if one wanted to make things interesting, one could flip the roles: Have the Saxons be the defending party and it is the Cymri or the Romans oppressing them. But then the rest of the adventure would need to get rewritten a bit as well. I mean, it would be easy enough to do, just switching one background for another, but then you would definitely run against 'Wait, why are we helping these Saxons again?' -problem. Especially since Chivalry isn't really a thing yet and the PKs have Hate Saxons, some of them having high values. It would be much easier to see them siding with the aggressors in that case, thinking that the Saxons deserve to get thumped in turn. This kind of switcheroo would work better post-Badon: Mercy for the defeated opponent, protecting widows and orphans, even if they are Saxon, etc... That might make for a very nice adventure, actually, give the PKs nice chance to rise to their Virtues or be dragged down by their Hate.

Reminds me of the time I sent the PKs to Anglia to see how cruelly Duke Hervis was oppressing the Angles there. The PKs actually had more sympathy for the Angles than the Duke, and thought that the Duke deserved every rebellion that he got. If I recall correctly, they ended up complaining to Arthur about it, and given that they had some significant political counters (having saved Arthur from Camille), Arthur actually stepped in to start reining Hervis in.

Except that in the adventure, the introduction is a group of Saxons beating up a hermit, followed by another group of Saxons kidnapping a lady. So it is a hard 'no' on them doing good stuff, even without the passions. Still, I would not limit Hate Saxons 15 or less PKs from choosing to try to negotiate with the Saxons. The Hate 16+ crowd ought to be objecting, though, but if it is just like one PK out of 4+, he can be outvoted. Hmm... Actually, I just reread the adventure with a bit more care, and it is actually not a choice but a scripted event. Yeah... so in that case, things are somewhat more different for the PKs. Even so, like I said, I would not make even the high Hate PKs to escalate things to a suicidal fight, as long as there are other options, and there is the point that he should be able to try and resist his high Hate with Hospitality (i.e. just do an opposed contest, if Hate wins, he will show his anger and probably provoke a duel challenge during the evening). Still, given that high Hate, the PK would likely do very well in any duel. So yeah, I still think that this adventure would work and be interesting.

The Adventure of the Horned Boar is not a diplomatic mission to the Saxons. Talking to the Saxons is totally optional, up to the PKs. And they can easily preselect their representatives so that they don't take the 'kill all of them and let their pagan gods sort them out' types with them if they want to negotiate. Now, I don't know what kind of framing device the GM is going to use to get the players to Weardale, but I presume it isn't to negotiate with the Saxons. The Embassy to Malahaut is just to get the players from Salisbury to Malahaut, and then some other excuse sends them up to Weardale.

No, I think Atgxtg was responding to illustrate that a high Passion might force the character to act in a self-destructive way. It is pretty central to the theme that knights act stupid at times, because of their Honor, their Loyalty, their Love Family, their Hate... That is one of the central core tenets of Pendragon. I think I would make the Players roll any Hate Saxons 16+, when they witness the kidnapping, though. Frankly, especially the Hate 20 PK ought to get triggered given what happened to his wife, and with the Hate so strong, leaping to conclusions and going for the violent response is what it is all about. It would be different if they would be just riding across the fields tended by Saxon farmers who are not offering a threat or have not done anything wrong other than be Saxons.

Oh, I agree with that too. The point is that for most of the time in Uther Period, there are really very few downsides for having high Hate Saxons, and it helps you a lot in the battles. (BoB2 does make it bite you a bit by forcing you to use it right away, rather than saving it for later.) So taking the one adventure where it actually might be useful to be able to negotiate with Saxons and deliberately taking the Saxons out to avoid the downside seems... inadvisable to me. Remember that you don't HAVE to roll a passion if it is less than 16. That is part of the 'deal'. If you have a high Passion, you get Glory for it, you are very likely to get Inspired, but on the downside, it controls your actions. There is just one situation in the adventure where the characters would be faced with a potential party wipe due to pushing the conflict too far. And if you have taken a high Hate PK into that situation, well, you kinda deserve what you get. While I wouldn't make the PK to start shanking Saxons right off in a social setting unless it was a critical Hate, I would expect that the high Hate PK would be expressing his hatred in some concrete way. Spitting on the Saxons, challenging them to a duel, insulting them in some other way, etc. So they would not make the best diplomats. The PKs ought to know this. Then again, a Hate 20 PK should not be favoring negotiations with the Saxons in the first place, so it is possible that if the party consists of several high Hate PKs, they opt to not negotiate and that is how the adventure goes. The adventure will still work just fine.

Uther and Warlord have almost nothing in Malahaut. Book of Sires has more. Perilous Forest has some, too. If you have GPC, you can read pages 124-128, which gives a lot of geographical information, even though it is a bit later in the campaign. Close enough. So? My wife is now on her 6th character, I think, all from different families due to them dying like flies during Anarchy. We started in 485 and are now in 525. So average lifespan about 7 years. And I just killed her expensive large charger in a battle. (Well, not me personally, obviously, but for some reason, I seem to get the blame when NPCs do something dastardly like use missile weapons...) Anyway, while you could turn the Angles in the adventure into Cymric settlers from elsewhere, it cheapens the story. High Passions, especially Hate Passions, are supposed to have downsides. If you always avoid putting the PKs into situations where those downsides become evident, it is the same as having no downsides at all. And that is boring. Let her play her high Hate Passion and chew some scenery and take what lumps there may be. I skimmed the adventure just now, and I think it will actually work even better when the other PKs need to restrain (or not) their comrade before he goes on a murderous rampage through the filthy Saxons. If the enemies are just other Cymri, then it is more 'meh', lacking that same emotional impact.