Morien

Several, actually, but the 540-ish one is in the link in the OP.

Yeah, but the lack of the travel gear means that he has no tent/pavilion. He does have blankets in his personal gear, at least. The liege sumpter mentioned is the SECOND sumpter needed for the war gear. To be honest, I suspect that Greg originally calculated the £8 thusly: rouncy £1 + chainmail £2 + knighting feast £5 = £8...

It was the same also in 4th edition, but I think Greg did explain it somewhere... This is what the poor knight looks like in 4th edition: Outfit 1: Poor Knight Norman (10-point) chainmail armor. Spear, shield, sword, dagger. Clothing worth 1/2£ 2 rouncys. This is almost the same as in 5.2 edition, despite the difference of 46 years in starting time. Looking just at the above equipment, you get about £5. However, he would need some more gear, personal and war gear, which would easily account for another £1 or even £2. This leaves £1-£2 over for a knighting feast, for a total of £8. It is reasonable enough. EDIT: Actually, I do see that the Poor Knight outfit in KAP 5.2 is not supposed to include any travel nor war gear, which is silly: you do need this stuff to campaign, even if you are a mere mercenary. So I'd add that stuff and a sumpter horse, which puts it at £1+, making £8 still a reasonable minimum to be knighted.

It is reasonable, although Greg usually handwaved that so that the eldest son got equipped with the average equipment of the day. Based on p. 188, it seems clear that the tax might run short of the required money for the Ordinary Knight and extra money needs to come from some place. While the manors do provide around £1 / year extra, the 2:1 conversion to treasure and the implication that hoarding is not something usually done would both speak against saving that excess being the usual thing. But if you save that and assume 25 years or so between generations, yeah, this is about enough to outfit an ordinary knight, taken together. There is also the dowry of the Mother, which is usually around £10 as well. So yeah, it should work. It is what I did our campaign when one of the PKs who was a (gifted) estate holder had his eldest son knighted. I gave him a budget of £60 (1 manor + 5 manor estate) to get the equipment and the feast, meaning that he started with the best horse and armor for the period, a couple of spare horses, fine clothing, and a big feast. Worked nicely enough. In our earlier campaign, we set the universal aids at 2*income for demesne manors, since we were still using £6 manors = £12 aid. But with £10 manors, aid = income works across the board. EDIT: As for the Later Periods, I have no problem with the normal landed knights (1 manor) starting to fall behind in the arms race. This is somewhat already guaranteed to happen, given that the replacement chargers are still just chargers, while they are expected to ride better horses. I might actually allow them to start improving the stock of their replacement horses, maybe coming one step behind the best horse of the period (minimum being a charger), assuming that they have gotten a good stallion as a stud to begin with. This would also be a way to help with the knighting costs, if they could get their first warhorse from the manorial horse herd rather than having to buy it themselves: the warhorse tends to be the biggest single cost in the knighting across all the periods. EDIT2: Cost of knighting, back in the day when poor chargers did not exist, and coursers were the 5d6 warhorses: http://web.archive.org/web/20190302153130/http://www.gspendragon.com/costofknighting.html. I am actually coming around to the idea that the chargers are too expensive in Early Periods already, and their prices should be £10 throughout. They are simply too ubiquitous through the Early Phase to be that expensive, and that high cost also makes knighting of an ordinary knight cost too much. Not to mention making a loot of a single charge a huge boost in the income of a PK. Keeping chargers at £10 solves all of the above problems.

No, it was in the KAP 5.1 Errata subforum, thread Family Knights: Greg Stafford 07-20-2015, 09:03 PM Ignore this entire section. It is badly presented and doesn't xcome close to what I had intended it to be and say. dwarinpt 09-07-2015, 08:53 PM Which section? What part exactly? Under which header? Morien 09-07-2015, 10:43 PM p.32, under Army. And later p. 51-52, under Your Living Family. You are welcome.

Found one: http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-3141.html An older one here: http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-411.html Oddly, while it has the correct name, it doesn't match what I was quoting in the newer thread, so I wonder if I was referring to another thread that I have been unable to find. Perhaps one of the Errata threads on 5.1?

They are probably either mercenary knights or household knights in some lord's service. Some might be household knights to your liege lord (paternal uncles, the spares of the previous generation, especially), but the further you go, more likely they are just mercenary knights. IMHO, the family knights should be cut off from the game*. Some players try to use them as private armies, which is so not how they are supposed to work. Furthermore, it cheapens the role of the PK as the landed knight in the family, when there are half a dozen other family knights running around. Whereas if you don't have any family knights to start with, then it is the PK's own choice to favor cousins and sponsor them to knighthood with equipment, hence making it a much more big of a deal when he does this and gets rewarded with a family knight, who naturally would be very loyal. (* I do make exceptions to 2nd sons, the spares, who I imagine get knighted with dad's old gear as their share of the inheritance to go out and try their luck.) Greg acknowledged that the family knights are problematic... I'll have to see if I can find the old thread in the Nocturnal Forum at some point.

Some, but given Uther's Lustful... Of course, one of the interesting what-ifs is if Ygraine was poisoning Uther after Arthur's kidnapping and this, rather than the duel with Argan, was the reason why he was so sick in 494 and 495. Not sick enough to die, but sick enough to not bother her. Then again, I am one of those who definitely sees Ygraine's marriage to Uther more in terms of 'what I need to do to save my daughters and myself' rather than any love for Uther. The kidnapping of Arthur and Uther letting the accomplices (the PKs) free sours her on Uther even more. And sure, it could be that the cold shoulder is enough to start cooling Uther's ardor, too. After all, he is probably more accustomed to women at least pretending to enjoy his attentions. But this is pure speculation, of course. Born 497, so 68 in 565. Year 558 APP 29 (down slightly from APP 30 she has in 514, 531 and 540). Must have been using those Glory Bonus Points!

Speaking of things we forgot to mention... (came up in a Discord discussion) Ygraine's age is already too low in GPC to have two daughters ready for marriage by 491, but since we included Gorlois' love story with her from 465 onwards, we naturally had to age her a bit (her birth year in GPC is 464...). So, based on our notes, she should have been born 450, making her 15 when she meets Gorlois, and 20 when she weds him. (Or born Winter 449, if you prefer that notation.) This means she is 41 when she conceives with Arthur, which also explains nicely why she didn't become pregnant again afterwards. Anyway, we forgot to add that note anywhere. So once the revision rolls around, we should add a bit of a note at the end of Gorlois' backstory in Appendices, I think.

I think that would be fair. The price would be the same as for a charger anyway.

BotEnt is correct. Otherwise Coursers would be much cheaper and superior to poor chargers in every way. I would allow a battle and hunt trained Courser for double the price, so about the same as a charger: a bit less damage but better DEX, Move and CON. Stat-wise, poor chargers are slightly smaller and weaker than a charger, to explain that drop in damage. I'd probably use courser stats for those (SIZ 30, STR 26), if it ever came up (it hasn't, thus far).

Correct. Yes. This is probably because originally, we were going to stop at 484, full stop. But then first Uther, and then Anarchy were added in Appendices, and somehow, Wessex got forgotten about. That being said, Chichester should be taken by Aelle, IMHO, since it is named after his son, Cissa. GPC maps have their usual detail, having Cerdic take Portchester (496 map) and then having PORT arrive and take Chichester (501 text + 503-504 maps), instead of Portchester/Portsmouth. Grr. Also, despite the text stating that Cerdic gives Portchester to Port, the 503-504 map does not reflect this. Oh well. Perhaps it serves to make Wessex a bit bigger and hence more of a threat to Salisbury, but I would be tempted to change that. It might even be an interesting plot point if Ulfius gives/abandons Chichester to Sussex in order to get an alliance/peace with them, perhaps in 502 (after Port's landing shows that the southern shore cannot be held) or 503 (Essex and Kent take London and push Ulfius west).

How has it worked so far in your campaign?

That reminds me, I forgot one houserule about ties. I have now added the following to the post: II.11.) Ties in combat If the two combatants tie in combat (but see II.1. on the crit-crit change as well), they both hit. Shields protect normally. If one of them is using a Sword (normal or Great) and the other isn't, then the non-sword is broken and does NOT do any damage.

Base calumny and pro-Camelot propaganda! Long live Good King Mark! (Our PKs aligned with Cornwall in 500 and thus ended up on the wrong side of 'Arthur the Win-Hax' in 510-513, resulting in the PKs' exile to Cornwall where they continued as favorites of King Mark, former Regent of Salisbury. It has been fun examining the insufferably smug and holier-than-thou Logres knights from Cornwall perspective. Besides... from GMing perspective, King Mark/John is a much more fun to play & generate drama than Arthur 'I am the Perfect King' Pendragon. )

In Book of Sires, Roestoc and Maris are independent kingdoms formed in 440s after the break-up of the Kingdom of Brigantines (of which Malahaut was the dominant part). As far as I know, they are still there in 520s. Maris shows up as the place where Ector de Maris is from, the bastard son of King Ban and, I think, the daughter of the King of Maris. I don't have GPC with me at the moment, but IIRC, this happens after the Battle of Bedegraine (511), implying that Maris is friendly to King Arthur after that victory. They are a small kingdom, hidden in their swamps, so they wouldn't have a huge effect either way.

In our game, female knights are still exceptional. Most of the female nobles (NPCs) are not interested in becoming knights, and I would imagine that SIZ 8 & STR 8 persons, male or female, would get discouraged by their parents from a knightly career (boys steered towards a clerical career, etc). However, exceptional women (mainly PKs, but with some NPKs) have both the desire and the ability to become knights, and once they do, they are treated as (male) knights, being able to inherit and so forth. Now granted, the inheritance can become a bit of an issue, if there are other siblings: brothers might feel that they are entitled to be before the sister, and sisters (and their husbands) might feel that they should be heiresses, if there are no brothers. But that is something I would discuss with the player: does she (or he) want to deal with such complications? If not, then the big brother might hear the call of the divine and become a clergyman, or he might die/go missing at some point. Younger brothers are probably already consigned to the idea of the big brother getting everything anyway, so it is not a big deal if it is the big sister instead, especially if there is an age gap between them. Younger sisters are very unlikely to marry before the big sister is already in squire training, so they and their future suitors know the score already. It is just a matter of working it out with the player.

The whole context of that part of the discussion was that she wasn't into medieval Arthur in the first place, but wanted a more dark ages Roman ruin and Celtic tribal vibe. Hence my question if she was aware of Age of Arthur, which might be a better fit for her preferences than KAP & GPC.

And since I have been reminded that the dead child doesn't do anything for the game save to serve as a potential trigger for part of the player base, here is the current version I am thinking: 1. Childbirth roll: Roll the Woman's CON. Modifiers: -10 if a child was born last year, -1 per year past 35. Critical: Twins born (roll 1d6: 1 = identical girls, 2 = sororal girls, 3 = girl & boy, 4 = boy & girl, 5 = fraternal boys, 6 = identical boys). Success: A healthy child born. Failure: no conception. Fumble: Tragedy. Go to the next table. 2. Tragedy roll: Roll the Woman's CON again. Critical: Child born. Success: Take a Major Wound, no child. Failure: NPC women die, child born; PC women take mortal wound (3 major wounds), child born. Fumble: Mortal wound, barren for life (which can be good for future survival), no child. Also, with NPC women, I'd just have -1 CON per major wound, since their other stats are not tracked. If you want, you can get rid of Child Survival roll, too, and just put -4 modifier on Childbirth roll. It should work out roughly the same as far as the family size is concerned.

The Book of the Entourage(v1.3, revised), actually. You are welcome. The Marriage table (for PKs) has has four columns for men, depending on their status/wealth: household, vassal, rich vassal and estate holder. The higher you are, the more likely it is that other rich men are wanting you to marry their daughters, or poorer men are trying to fix you up with their heiress daughter. And if you already have heirs, then you roll a step lower, since the father of the bride knows that the chances that his grandchild will inherit you is lower, and he might be better off looking for a young vassal knight instead. And host of modifiers, of course. It also has another Marriage table for Player-ladies, having the above four columns (the daughter of...) and then Heiress -column. With its own modifiers, especially if you are an older woman who is still childless, as then you have less chance of providing heirs. And lots more, like rules for followers and Player-squires... The revised Book of Entourage is great value for money, IMHO.

And to make it really confusing, County Berroc (Surrey) is separate from County Thamesmouth, in WARLORD.

Again, speaking from my vague recollections... The very vagueness, the fact that all the PKs started as vassal knights, the example heiresses with several manors of their own, and the easy availability of 1-manor heiresses from Random Marriage Table (guaranteed on 5+ result on 1d20) all presented a picture that Vassal Knights are plentiful. Indeed, at the Banneret -entry of 4th edition, it says that a banneret, having several manors himself, must have at least 3 knights holding land from him, but typically seven or eight. If you look at Logres random chargen in 4th edition for Father's class, it gives 1-8 odds for a landed knight/lord, 9-14 for a landless knight (household or mercenary) and 15+ for a squire. So, any people, myself included, pretty much assumed that it was something like half and half or thereabouts. Then Greg did some more research, especially with regards to Warlord, and came up with a figure like 10% of the knights ought to be vassals or lords, the rest household knights. That Landed Knights were much rarer than was the impression given in Pendragon, and getting a manor should take a lot of hard work, not just a 5+ roll with a 1d20. EDIT: One of the Utterances of Greg that I could find, from way back in 2011: http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-1253.html

Thanks. And yeah, it wasn't a happy marriage. I did manage to find another death by childbirth one... Sara was also a sister* to a PK (a female knight this time). She got married first to one PK, and once she was widowed, she was in no hurry to remarry. In our campaign, I give the PKs more leeway with their own family members rather than make the liege lord the guardian, so when yet another PK started asking for the widow's hand, the widow was like 'no thanks, got my money, don't need no husband'. So her Big Sister (the female PK) leaned on her, HARD. Nunnery was mentioned. And not one of the upper class ones. One where she was expected to actually scrub the floors. Rather than face that, the widow decided to marry the suitor, figuring that this way, the suitor would be gone most of the time adventuring & war anyway, and she a lady of a manor with servants and such... yeah, not that bad a fate. Then she found out (after some years) that her husband had been cheating on her, so she started flirting with one of the other PKs, who was Famous Lustful, to express her displeasure. Jealousy led to a duel challenge, the husband beating the other knight up and demanding on swordpoint for the knight to leave his wife alone. The husband PK then patched up things with his wife. She was widowed soon after that (nothing to do with her!). And this time there was no Big Sister to bully her (the sister PK had died earlier), so she lived happily as a widow, gaining a bit of a (whispered) reputation for handsome stablehands. Some years later, a handsome PK started courting her, despite her being already around 35 years old. She was kinda missing having a husband and no doubt felt a bit flattered by the attention, so she decided to marry for the third time. She managed to give her husband a girl and a boy, but unfortunately, died in the second childbirth, at 40 years old. EDIT: Just to clarify, she had one daughter by the first husband, I think 3 sons and 2 daughters with the second husband, and then a girl and a boy with the third husband, for a total of 8 children, all of whom survived her. * There was a lot of marrying another PK's sister going on in the first generation. After all, most families had at least one little sister needing to be married off, so why not get a good vassal knight-to-be (fathers were still alive) as a husband?

Actually, here is the formula I use at the moment. MARRIAGE GLORY (max 1000): Basic Glory for marriage = 10 Beauty of the bride = +5 * (APP-15) * 2 (if APP 20+), so APP 16 = +5, APP 21 = +60 Dowry = +libra Wedding Feast = +10 * libra spent (up to £10, then 1 Glory per £1) 20% of Woman's Glory (after +1000 for first marriage if to a knight) = +X If Heiress of Land = +50 / manor You can see that the Wedding Feast complies with the Conspicuous Consumption rules. I could see increasing the Glory for both the APP and the Dowry a bit, and bring the Glory down to 10% level instead. Note that I give the same Glory to the woman, too, except that the Glory & Lands are the husband's. Although I could see giving her the heiress of land bonus, if her lands are more extensive than the husband's, instead. So maybe something like: MARRIAGE GLORY (max 1000): Basic Glory for marriage = Bride's APP Beauty of the bride (if 16+, x2 if 20+)= +10 * (APP-15), so APP 16 = +10, APP 21 = +120 Dowry = +2 * libra (up to £100) Wedding Feast = +10 * libra spent (up to £10, then 1 Glory per £1) 10% of Woman's Glory (after +1000 for first marriage if to a knight) = +X If Heiress of Land = +100 / manor 'Average Wife': APP 15, Father's Glory 3000, Dowry £10, Wedding Feast £5 Old system: 10+10+50+260 = 330 New system: 15+20+50+130 = 215 'Beautiful Wife': APP 20, Father's Glory 3000, Dowry £10, Wedding Feast £5 Old system: 10+50+10+50+260 = 380 New system: 20+100+20+50+130 = 320 'Heiress Wife': APP 15, Father's Glory 3000, Dowry £10+manor, Wedding Feast £5 Old system: 10+10+50+260+50 = 380 New system: 15+20+50+130+100 = 315 'Widowed Wife': APP 15, Father's Glory 3000, Dowry £10, Wedding Feast £5, +1000 previous Glory Old system: 10+10+50+460 = 530 New system: 15+20+50+230 = 315 'Famous-Father Wife': APP 15, Father's Glory 8000, Dowry £10, Wedding Feast £5 Old system: 10+10+50+360 = 430 New system: 15+20+50+180 = 265 Hmm. I do like the New System in some respects, such as not making the Widows too preferred Glory-wise (the Widow's Portion is still a major lure, of course), and making the Beautiful Wives more desirable Glory-wise, perhaps tempting the Players to overlook things like lower Dowries and such. Which would kinda fit how the PKs might be acting in character. I might add +1% of Father-in-law's Glory (adding it again, as it is already in Woman's Glory), just to make the Father-in-law's reputation matter a bit more (as it did when using 20% of the Woman's Glory). One would also expect that more Glorious knights would be more able to give larger dowries to their daughters, but that is a bit of a side issue. This way, the daughter of a famous knight (8000 Glory) would be worth 100 Glory more (equal to an heiress) than the average older knight's (Glory 3000) daughter, which fits in my mind. So I think this is what I'd go with from now on: MARRIAGE GLORY (max 1000): Basic Glory for marriage = Bride's APP Beauty of the bride (if 16+, x2 if 20+)= +10 * (APP-15), so APP 16 = +10, APP 21 = +120 Dowry = +2 * libra (up to £100) Wedding Feast = +10 * libra spent (up to £10, then 1 Glory per £1) 10% of Woman's Glory (after +1000 for first marriage if to a knight) = +X 1% of Father-in-law's Glory = +X If Heiress of Land = +100 / manor

That is pretty close to the backstory we came up for a Saxon warrior woman, who was a backup PK. Her family had been slain in a intra-Saxon feud, but she managed to escape and was squired & knighted by a Cymric Knight. Alas, we didn't really use those backup characters, so her storyline didn't get completed, but the plan was for her to get her revenge post-Badon. But to answer the original question... It depends on how much story weight and Love (Wife) Passion is involved. We don't play out the funerals even for the PKs, it is more of a matter of last words and asking their friends to look after their families. Generally, it is expected that there is a year's mourning period. Less than this may raise some eyebrows. If the Love (Wife) was less than 16, I generally let it go at that. If it is higher than 16, I expect the PK to be in mourning, but I allow them to reduce the passion by 1 each Winter Phase, IF they choose to. They can choose to keep the passion (and gain Glory thereby), but then they will still be in mourning and will not remarry. There are three things that make the PKs want to remarry quickly: 1) They don't have heirs yet and they need them. 2) They want to have a caretaker for their manors. 3) They want the marriage glory & dowry. If they already have plenty of heirs and especially if the first wife was someone with more of a story behind her, then the player might decide that he is fine being a widower, and is in no hurry to remarry just to get a new 'random' wife. Since we are using the new childbirth tables I was talking about in my house rules thread, the childbirth mortality has come way down, and hence the wives are dying much less often. Indeed, it is much more common for there to be widows than widowers. I recall three occasions from our game: 1) The wife in question was a beautiful little sister of one of the other PKs. She wasn't too keen on the marriage, but big brother pushed her to marry his friend (the husband PK). The husband did his best to try and win her affections, but I think their first child died soon after childbirth. And then at the second pregnancy, she had complications and both her and the child died. Her parting words, if I recall, were: "And now you have managed to kill me, too." The PK was a bit torn up about it. 2) In the other case, the wife was a player-lady. As it happens, she managed to catch the eye of a local faerie prince, while she was still a maiden, and was lured to his castle with the aid of a unicorn. The Faerie Prince (The Prince in White and Gold) seduced her and then returned her to the mortal world at her request. Finding herself pregnant, she married one of the PKs to preserve her reputation. However, the following year, after she had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, she was back adventuring with the lads, they saw a unicorn again, and they let her go off on her own. This time, shedidn't return, and after looking for her for a week, they returned home. The PK found out that his wife had returned, written him a letter, and left again with the baby. The letter stated her apologies, but she had fallen in love with the Faerie Prince, and she suggested that they should declare her dead, so that he could remarry. The PK decided not to remarry, and died a couple of years later, executed for treason against Prince Mark and Cornwall. 3) The third case happened just last year. The PKs had been meeting with some Faeries as part of the adventure, and the group's male Pagan PK was putting the moves on anything with a dress. He did succeed in seducing a faerie lady... who proved to be a bit more possessive over her new paramour, trying to delay his departure from the enchanted forest. When they got home, his wife mysteriously became ill and died soon thereafter (family event). There is a suspicion that a faerie curse might be behind it... Note that only one of the above is a death in childbirth, one was a player's choice, and the last one was a family event + story thread.