Morien

I was referring more to the fact that the rings of the chainmail have a LOT of surface area, and the friction of the rings sliding and grinding against one another might rub the thin layer off quickly enough. In any case, just applying a cost multiplier to the base cost seems a bit iffy, but there could be a bigger 'mark up' since idiot nobles will pay without thinking too much about the price. Granted, historically towards Late Middle Ages new chainmail was actually more expensive than plate armor, due to the labor-intensive construction methods. This is not the case in Pendragon, which I handwave away as the speed of the adoption: there is still a LOT of grandfather's & father's obsolete chainmail floating around, near pristine condition, which helps to keep the price down.

They are from my equipment lists to give the higher lords some extra bling, and got adopted to BotW. The prices are simply multiplied by 3 for silvered and 10 for golden in my notes, although it is possible that Greg had other values in mind. Note that the armor in question is not actually made from silver or gold, just coated, since neither (but especially gold) is good metal for armor or weapons. Granted, for my players, I would simply ask them to describe the armor decorations and then tell how much money they want to spend on it. For instance, I doubt that silvering a breastplate would be nearly as much work than doing it for a chain mail. Durability is another matter too; links chafing against one another. But I tend to handwave those things for the Rule of Cool.

I know I wrote a post with some suggestions on how to gauge the Pendragon combat deadliness in the old Nocturnal Forum. I don't have the time to recreate it (or dig it up) now, but in a nutshell, the killers are: 1) Monsters hitting lots of dice of damage, capable of single-shotting a PK to minus HP far enough that saving them with First Aid is impossible. High skill, impassioned enemy knights criticaling go into this category as well, particularly with later period heavier warhorses and lance charges, although this is partially counteracted by armor improvement. (In our campaign,we use +4d6 for criticals rather than double, and this makes a huge difference when facing a 8d6+ attacks that critical.) 2) No Mercy! Enemies who do not show any mercy for unconscious PKs can easily turn a lost fight into a total party kill. Better to use opponents who have some reason to keep the PKs alive, even if it is just for Ransom. This also lowers the chance of 'random' deaths. 3) Lack of proficient healers. Compare First Aid 10 to someone with First Aid 20, and you see why this is a huge advantage to have. It was so big an advantage that the PKs ended up pooling their resources together and hiring a physician (First Aid and Chirurgery 16+) to ride around with them to patch them up after the fights. 1d3 healing per wound gives a big buffer to death, since usually it takes half a dozen hits to knock a PK down (but see point 1 for an exception).

Up to you, of course. I find that the more I GM Pendragon, the less bothered I get about money. It comes and goes very easily. It usually only becomes a problem if the PKs really start leveraging it to something like a mercenary army, but even in those cases, as the GM, I can impose some limits on the availability of the mercenaries, etc. If they spend their loot on building improvements, it usually takes a decade to make the money back, and it might get destroyed by luck or raiding (since we use some modified Book of the Manor rules for those).

No relation to either of the namesakes. I simply liked the name and used it for my first Pendragon character, and it stuck. As for Knighting, I think I would point to Greg, who appointed me to his cadre of Household Knights, although like he wrote in my Book of Knights (I think it was): "We are all knights.". As for Cadwy, you are not the only one who is confused about him, Sir Mad Munkee. As far as I can tell, Greg's thinking of Summerland and Cadwy did a quite abrupt change between Blood & Lust and GPC - Cadwy is a very devout Christian and mortal king, with a very mortal family, and Summerland is repeatedly invaded semi-successfully by Cornwall without a faerie in sight - and especially Book of the Warlord & Uther - Cadwy is a wizard king and Summerland can take what Uther throws at it.

Builth War is very much good fun. As for Paulag Cat, my players HATED that feline! No doubt because it used the PKs as its chewtoys several times.

My take: If the PKs are riding as part of a patrol, under the command of a senior knight (the Marshal) and with other knights, then army rules kick in. At the VERY LEAST, the army commander / liege should get a third of the loot (this is already deducted in normal battle loots, by the way), including ransoms. It was not uncommon for the liege to reserve higher value captives for themselves, paying a 'finder's fee' to the actual captor. In our campaign, half is the usual amount, and allows the PK to get the money NOW rather than in dribs and drabs over the years with the need to have a knightly guest in his manor (the upkeep of the guest is added to the ransom, by the way). If the PKs are adventuring on their own, then it is a different matter, and they can have the ransom for themselves. Of course, they can have some additional problems with organizing it, so going to the liege again and asking him to organize it with the above 50/50 split is not a bad idea. It also makes the liege happier, so win-win there. Finally, in our campaigns, the usual agreement in the 'Fellowship' (Group Loyalty) is to split loot in even shares. Everyone shares the danger, so everyone shares the loot. But this is clearly up to the knights themselves. In clear duel situations things are up to the PK who did the dueling, of course.

My take: You are supposed to show mercy to knights who surrender. You CAN kill enemy footsoldiers without mercy, but gain Cruel checks for doing so. If you ride down peasants fleeing away from your raid, especially women and children, expect other knights to start giving you a bit of stinkeye, too. Things are a bit more relaxed during the war, but I still think that a knight who is seeing how many babies he can impale on his lance will get a VERY bad reputation really quickly and I would start handing out Honor penalties as the show of that social disapproval. As for the surprise, against commoners, anything goes, though. You do not need to announce your attack on a bunch of Saxon raiders, who are clearly sneaking up on your lands, no better than bandits. That being said, if there is a mortal duel between you and a Saxon champion, expect that showing chivalry (letting the other guy get up, rearm and so forth) will get approving murmurs (and Honor checks), but also 'check Stupid AKA Reckless, too'. It is kinda like this: if you have, by accepting the duel, acknowledged the other guy as a knight-equivalent, the honor rules kick in. If it is war and they are sneaking across the border to ambush you, hammer them all you want. If it is war and they have agreed to meet you at this particular field to fight the battle, it is very bad form to ambush them as soon as they march up. Same thing if you have both agreed to start the battle at noon, then dawn raiding would be quite dishonorable. Generally you wouldn't have such pre-arrangements with non-knightly foes, so the question doesn't come up in war. If you have accepted someone as your guest, then Hospitality rules kick in, no matter how lowly the guest might be. Although I do see exceptions being made for criminals and outlaws. Even if it is a face-saving measure of 'you are no longer welcome in this house' and the actual arrest taking place outside the manor.

Same in our campaigns. It can swiftly become a bit incestuous, though, so a dash of new blood is recommended from time to time. But it is very common for our PKs to be related through marriage, whether marrying sisters/widows of other PKs, or happening to marry sisters from the same NPC family.

I heartily encourage this. It ensures that there is some continuity between the PKs, even if one of them gets replaced by a younger brother. The younger brother would have been in the same adventures (as a squire) and would have had a Mentor/student relationship with another PK, too. Not to mention that it also helps to knit the other new PKs together, having been squiring in the same group and likely shared tips and chores.

The above quotation is what prompted me to start a new thread on this. Since we do see this question asked often enough, I figured it would be nice to have it as its own thread rather than hidden inside the Bear Hunt thread. As for my own thoughts... 1. GPC: This depends a bit. I could see someone getting the Book of Uther first (or just the stand-alone GPC King Uther Expansion) and using that as a cheap test campaign 480 - 484 to see how his/her players like it. But assuming we are talking about someone committed to this, then yeah, GPC itself is pretty much a must have. As much as I have griped about being constrained by the GPC from time to time, it does offer a great framework to deviate from when you want to, or a crutch when you can't come up with anything else. 2. Book of the Entourage: Personally, I would be tempted to get Book of the Entourage next. It is useful throughout the campaign and it has information on how to run NPC wives and husbands and how to get them and how much marriage glory they are worth, etc (including fixing the WAY too generous random marriage table in KAP 5.2). Not to mention other retainers and how they develop as well, including the average equipment of the knights through the periods. And also more information on the squirehood & maid-in-waiting years. There are other interesting nuggets hidden in there as well. And it is a cheap as far as the Book of... series goes. 3. Book of the Estate: This has some very important rule changes hidden in there, including the Title Glory [EDIT3: This is actually in Warlord, not in Estate!], but most importantly the Family Survival rules. If you don't use these (or other fixes) you pretty ensure that your dynasty will die during the childhood. Since dynastic play is one of the big draws of Pendragon for me, this is very important. Of course, you can just grab those rules from forum discussions and use them, as well as the new manor rules, and get by. But if your players like building up their home base or interacting with their servants, this book becomes even more important. If they care not a whit about those things, I could see skipping this book. Here comes a choice. If you are mainly interested in playing a default GPC with Cymric knights from Salisbury, I would go for the Book of the Warlord next. However, if you want to bring a disparate group of knights from over the Western Empire to play in Logres, Book of Knights & Ladies and Book of Sires is what you want. 4A. Book of the Warlord: Again, I personally prefer this book over Book of Uther*, with which it overlaps a lot. Book of the Warlord overlaps somewhat with Estate, too, but it does bring with it a complete list of all of the castles of Logres from 485 to 518, including nuggets of information what happens to them (and Salisbury) during the Anarchy. And the Barons as of 485, with nice tables for Scenario Hooks & Baronial Replacement during Anarchy. To cap it off, there is a nice Warlord (NPK) generator with a heraldry generator, too, giving the GMs an easy way to come up with new individual NPKs with a few rolls of the dice. Oh, did I mention the Graft solo for the PKs who have managed to become officers of a Baron? Not to mention all the experience checks they gain from executing their office? All of the above is very useful throughout the Early Phase, and I'd argue that the Scenario & Replacement tables will give a nice kickstart for any damsel in distress or mysterious castle adventures during Romance & Tournament, too, before Yellow Pestilence & Wasteland & Grail Quest pretty much recreate the chaos of Anarchy and it is off to the races again with the lawlessness and usurpation! Oh, did I mention also the honour (landholdings) write-ups for Salisbury, Silchester and the Barony of Thornbush? * The realm information is only slightly expanded in Book of Uther, although BoU does detail Uther's court a lot. However, since I personally don't see the new knights interacting so much with the high officials of Uther's court, I much prefer the castle information in BotW and its much wider usability. BoU has the Courtly Intrigue tables, but my understanding is that the Book of Feasts pretty much provides enough courtly action by themselves already. This pretty much leaves just the GPC expansion on the table for BoU, as far as I am concerned, and it is available as a standalone, too. 4B. Book of Knights & Ladies and Book of Sires: Book of Knights & Ladies offers more chargen origin options, like Atgxtg said. However, it does suffer a bit from the same fault as the Book of Sires, which is that once your knight's history/bloodline is set, it is unlikely to change during the campaign (unless you manage to get the whole dynasty killed which, in my mind, is very detrimental to the campaign as the whole). I can see the appeal of of having the other chargen options, but it becomes a bit hard to explain what all of these foreign knights are doing in Uther's Britain, which is NOT a shining beacon of chivalry that Camelot will be later on. Book of Sires gives some answers that question, but I would argue that the main use for Book of Sires would be to provide a very nice resource for the GMs to either explore a 'prequel GPC', stretching from 439 to 485 in Logres & Cumbria, or using those local histories to use another county than Salisbury as the homeland for the PKs. And even set the campaign in another county, for which option the Book of the Warlords would be very useful, too. 5. Pretty much whichever set 4A or 4B I didn't already get, for reasons stated above. 6. Book of Uther, for reasons stated above. And I have to say, if you already have the GPC & Book of Sires, the GPC Expansion doesn't add too much to it, making BoU worth even less to me. Again, if you like dozens of characters with short back stories / personalities and going heavy on the Uther period, perhaps with the help of BoSires starting the campaign earlier and allowing the PKs to be movers and shakers by Uther Period, then more power to you. But the fact that in the default GPC campaign, most of these characters will be dead within a decade is a major minus in my 'usability' sheet. 7. Book of the Manor: Like Atgxtg said, this is pretty much superseded by ESTATE & ENTOURAGE. Since I have not used Book of Battles and Book of Armies in play, and cordially dislike them for making the battles even longer and more math-heavy (while recognizing that there are some good ideas in there mixed with bad ones, IMHO... the Skill 20+ units of commoners drive me NUTS!), I don't think I can give a good recommendation on those. I do see Atgxtg's point of using the BoA unit tables with the basic Battle system, but since I hate those tables, this is not a recommendation for me! Because I'd end up rewriting those encounter lists anyway (and do!), BoA is wasted on me. People do tell me that once you learn the BoB system, it works nicely (even if somewhat overpowered at times, allowing the Players to game the system to cause the enemy army to rout, if I understand right). But I have no interest in making Battles even more complicated than they already are, and am in fact mor inclined to the other way, BoB and BoA gets a thumbs down from me. Again, my personal preference. Your Pendragon May Vary. The big omission is the Book of Feasts, which I do not own. This is because I already have a homebrew system in place that I use for the feasts, and see no need to introduce a new system for it, potentially making the feasts even longer than they already are. But that being said, I'd probably bump it up to at least number 6, maybe even higher (up to 3rd) if the GM is not that into the world information and wants to focus solely on what the PKs are up to during their adventures. Alright. I hope that somewhat rambling list will be useful to someone! (Now if we include the earlier supplements, all the adventure & regional books get big thumbs up for the sheer amount of adventures that they contain! Blood & Lust is probably my favorite, with its multi-year mini-campaign around the Heart Blade. EDIT 3: A longer comment here https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/14345-what-books-to-have-for-a-new-campaign-new-to-pendragon/?tab=comments#comment-225403 ) EDIT (prices from Drivethrurpg at the moment of writing this): Just realized that while Book of Uther is $19.99, Book of Sires is ONLY $14.99! I'd call that a steal, actually! Book of Uther adds 5 years to GPC, while Book of Sires adds... uh... at least 45 years, which you can multiply by at least 4 or so for all the regional differences that you can mine for adventure ideas, too! Book of the Warlord is a rather hefty chunk of change at $29.99, even more than GPC's $24.99. Book of the Entourage is $14.99, and Book of the Estate $19.99. I could even see dropping Book of the Estate in favor of Book of the Warlord + Book of the Entourage, if really strapped for cash. Warlord can be used for running a simple manor, but it tends to gloss over some of the low detail stuff more than Estate does. However, if you are not big on base building and fortifying your manor (which, historically, you wouldn't be allowed to do on a whim, actually), then yeah, you would be fine just using Warlord's appendix for the single manor. You still need to fix the family/child survival of the base rulebook, but there are plenty of threads discussing that in the old Nocturnal Forum (once it becomes available again), or just asking people here. But in the final analysis, most of the Pendragon books are about the same as ordering a pizza. Pizza is gone in an evening, but the book would still be there. EDIT 2: I can't believe that I forgot all the fine free stuff that is around, too... The Marriage of Count Roderick: https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/Pendragon/NM14 - Marriage of Count Roderick.pdf The Dragons of Britain #1 - #4: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121452/The-Dragons-of-Britain-1

Just to toss a quick thought to the mix... I deliberately ensured that the PK manors would be grouped together geographically, since this gives them more reasons to cooperate. Also, during Anarchy, it made for some nice intra-Salisbury politics, with the Eastern Salisbury very concerned about the Saxons and Levcomagus, while the Western Salisbury was more concerned about the Forest of Gloom.

I know. I just tried to not distract people with full invective. Not only that, but it very very much undervalues the Wives. After all, if they are likely to drop dead in a few years, there is much less incentive to actually caring about them as people. Or even worse, you put in the time to court them, and then they die on you like mayflies. For instance, there was one NPC lady whom the PK pursued, and wouldn't you know that she dropped dead like a couple of years into the marriage. All that half a dozen years of flirting and courting, gone. In addition, given the murderous child survival rules (fortunately, THOSE got fixed in Book of the Estate), you were looking at only 1 in 4 children surviving to adulthood, on ordinary. This meant that your wife was likely to give you two children before she died, and of those two children, one, MAYBE, would survive to adulthood. So in the end, you had something like 25% chance of a living adult son from that marriage to carry on the family legacy. Not a good thing, dynastically. With the new childbirth rules Thijs and I came up with, the chance of death in childbirth is much rarer now, and hence more of a tragedy when it does happen, rather than 'oh, goodie, I can get the marriage Glory again'...

It is very much OK to ask for advice in this Forum. It is practically what it is for! 1. Hunting on horseback: I think the assumption in the adventure is that they'd be on foot, but many other creatures are hunted on horseback, so it is not unrealistic as such. 2. Charging the bear on horseback: I would not allow this. Generally speaking, I don't allow lance charges in a forest, unless it is along an actual road or a clearing. A game path is twisty and windy enough, and not wide enough to pass the target, so you'd be crashing your horse into the bear. The horse doesn't want to do that! Finally, you'd only use the horse's damage stat for LANCE CHARGES. If you are poking with a spear from the saddle or swinging your sword, you are using your own damage stat. And yes, it should have been opposed rolling, only the winner does damage. 3. Valorous rolls: I wouldn't mandate these for a mere bear, but I could see that for squires, just to showcase how the Trait system works. Trait 16 doesn't make you immune to Trait TESTS, IMHO. It simply means that if you have a CHOICE whether you wish to act Valorous or Cowardly, you HAVE TO CHOOSE Valorous, unless you roll and FAIL your Valorous 16. Example of a choice: "You have the evening free. Do you wish to spend the time flirting with the ladies (check Lustful), booze up with the knights (check Indulgent), attend the evening mass (check Pious) or something else, what?" In this case, someone with Chaste 16 COULDN'T choose flirting with the ladies unless they rolled and failed Chaste 16 first. Someone with Chase 15 could pick it up straight away, and I would require someone with Lustful 16 to choose flirting unless they roll and fail Lustful 16 first. Example of a test: "The sultry lady (actually a succubus) tries to seduce you. Roll Chaste to resist." In this case, it is less of a choice and more of a triggered test of your Trait. It doesn't matter what your Trait is, you are still rolling it. I generally reserve these kinds of trait tests to (semi-)magical encounters, not for mundane ones, which I keep as a choice. Note that many beasts and monsters mandate Valorous rolls, possibly with minuses before you can engage them in combat. These would be tests, too; you have to roll and succeed in Valorous, no matter what your Valorous trait is. Even if it is modified to 1, you can still succeed, despite your Cowardly being 19. 4. GM screen: There is none, but @Atgxtg just mentioned that he is in a process of compiling his own. Maybe he can share it with us once he is done? If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Welcome to the community!

If you go by the KAP 5.2 Childbirth table, then no. The modifiers you had earlier were the suggested variant childbirth modifiers ( http://nocturnalmediaforum.com/iecarus/forum/showthread.php?2155-New-Childbirth-Table-amp-Blessed-Birth&p=18243&viewfull=1#post18243 ), worked by me and Thijs on the Nocturnal Forum. But they should be used for the rules for Conception and Birth being separate rolls (& tables), not with the KAP 5.2 childbirth table (which, as an aside, I find murderous for the women and very displeasing).

Childbirth modifiers or the childbirth table is wrong. Where did you get this? I don't see the PK squire stuff that was mentioned earlier, but that is good; those rules should be used for PK squires, not for follower squires.

The Embassy to Estregales in 494 has some Cambrian tribesmen as guests to King Canan. The Hate might cause some friction there between the guests.

I hope David won't nail my hide to the mast for speaking out, but this (having an easy way to scale the size of the animal & its stats based on its size) is something that Greg and I were talking for KAP 6, as well as overhauling the beast stats in general so that they'd be more consistent. Granted, the more fantastical beasts are fantastical for a reason, and not necessarily conform to their mundane counterparts; the poster child of this is the Lion, of course. Derived Stat formulas are not that simple, since especially movement and damage would vary some from animal to animal. For instance, a hoofed animal's kick should differ from the bite of a wolf, for instance. Personally, I am not burning with need for this kind of a book, but I am probably on the lighter side when it comes to beast use in my campaigns, preferring more human opponents. And I am experienced enough to tweak beasts to match what I want them to be capable of doing, or simply to individualize them. And, to be brutally honest, my campaigns already require several sessions for a year, I don't need more emphasis on Hunt to take even more time! I am even condensing tournaments to a few rolls as it is!

Cambrian tribesmen are the hill men of Cambria. So you'd be looking at the mountains of Wales, pretty much most of Cambria south of Norgales and north of Escavalon and Estregales. There are some civilized kingdoms out there like Ergyng and Galvoie, but most of them are tribesmen rather than feudal. In Cumbria, the situation is somewhat different, since they become feudalized more fully, too. So the Hatred should probably be for a particular Cumbrian homeland. If you don't mind me asking, in what circumstances did they pick up those Hates? Grandfather died in the invasion of the Picts and the Cumbrians? Siege of Carlion for the Cambrians? I am asking because if you start off from South Counties, it takes a bit of doing to get those Hates otherwise...

Yes. I think Bob's phrasing there was because all of the family history is 'previous history' from the chargen perspective. But yeah, following history might be less confusing.

The above two would be easily combined into a single book. After all, horses are beasties, too, and it would give this hypothetical Book of the Beasts some additional material to make it more interesting. It would probably need some more than just the size variants and variety of horses, though. Updated hunting rules, perhaps, and a couple of beast related adventures? Oh, fully agreed there. There is the Marriage of Count Roderick, but it is admittedly more of a string of short yearly solos to enliven the campaign than an adventure by itself. Of course there is the host of 'Tales of...' series and the regional books with adventures from previous editions, too, which is what I am primarily drawing on for adventures, especially in Romance and after. Having some new adventures would be nice, though. Probably the bigger issue is the maps going down to manor-level, or worse, hamlet level. A quick few page blurb on the ruling family and a couple of main NPKs and ladies and clerics would be easy enough, but a full book on every county? That is way too much. That being said, I for one would like to see more regional books, like I have said. Some of these were published, at least in part, in previous editions, like Perilous Forest covering pretty much the whole of Cumbria, and Savage Mountains doing Cambria. But both of those treated the regions more like places for the PKs to visit and adventure in, and then go home to Salisbury/Logres, rather than actually being from the region. Instead, I'd like to see regional books that detail the starting location at least to the level of Salisbury in KAP 5.2, including family history, and then give me support to running GPC from that region instead of Salisbury. Including some local adventures, which can be adapted to outside knights as well. For example, Cameliard and Lothian would be very interesting places to start from, and get very little attention in GPC. Even Savage Mountains and Beyond the Wall pretty much gloss over these regions, and more importantly, are already set in Conquest/Romance phases, a good generation or two after the official starting date. For more Logres-centric game, Lindsey looks like a very interesting region as well, although admittedly it 'suffers' a bit from having its Duke survive, and hence Anarchy is not nearly as interesting as in Salisbury. But granted, you could make the same claim about Cameliard and Lothian as well, and at least in Lindsey, you'd certainly feel the Saxon pressure a lot more, not to mention Malahaut looking at your lands pretty hungrily as well. Speaking of Malahaut, it and Cornwall would be additional interesting starting places, and in Cornwall's case, you could cover both the Duchy of Cornwall and the Kingdom of Cornwall.

Heh. That actually happens in 478-479, while Aurelius is busy with his Frisian campaign. And explains why Uther has such an uphill battle to get to High Kingship; a diplomat he is not. In SIRES, only Nohaut and Deira make a peace treaty with Aurelius; Kent does not. Aurelius loses his Continental mercenaries after 469, and many of his veterans go off with Riothamus to die in that ill-fated campaign, which is why he can't simply stomp Kent out. With Cornwall turning from an ally into a distraction, and Kent getting additional reinforcements from the Continent, Aesc launches an invasion up the Thames valley in 473. It is a hard fought battle, albeit ultimately a defeat for the Britons, hence setting up also the Uther - Gorlois rivalry/hatred as Uther blames Gorlois for not bringing his knights to the fight (Gorlois being busy in a war against Idres). The initiative shifts to the Saxons with lots of raiding. That being said, your variant could work as well, although I would expect that Kent would be more aggressive in 471-2 already; surely Aurelius' personal involvement in the Gaulish Campaign means more of his veterans go with him. This would strip more men from Logres, and with Uther's less than diplomatic ways, probably he would have harder time to muster the nobles, especially the semi-independent kings. He is no High King, after all. I have hard time believing, though, that Aurelius would stay missing for 3 years. But I could see him missing for a year, allowing the balance to shift (as above) and for Kent to tell their kinsmen in the Continent that Britain is ripe for the taking, hence the big influx of more Saxons in 473. With Aurelius rumored dead, though, it becomes harder to justify Octa and Eosa staying calm during the 470s. After all, they still have their armies mainly intact. Although I guess that if Aurelius is returning in 471 already, Octa and Eosa can quickly scrap their plans of Malahaut invasion for the summer. In my headcanon, I have them remaining peaceful out of two reasons: 1) They did take oaths to Aurelius (which is also the excuse why they do rebel in 480s; Aurelius is dead so they are freed from those oaths). 2) 'Sibling' rivalry: if they help Aesc stomp the Britons, Aesc will be reaping most of the Glory and benefits, while Octa and Eosa have to bend knee to him. This is the flipside of why I have Aelle staying calm during 516-517; he doesn't want to help the New Saxon invaders to Malahaut, but prefers Arthur and them whittling each other down, so that he can sweep them off the board afterwards. And it almost works: he is the Bretwalda of all the Saxons of Britain at Badon Hill. But in the end, it would be your story to tell.

Nice link, although it doesn't claim that Riothamus would be ruling the Kingdom of Burgundy. As far as I know, Riothamus vanishes from History, and we know the names & the descent of the Kings of the Burgundians during this time. There is no space for Riothamus in Burgundy, and it would be quite difficult to make another kingdom in the middle of Gaul, too. Not to mention, why would he? Especially if he is the High King in Britain (or even a King of Cornwall or Brittany), why wouldn't he return home rather than try to take over another kingdom with, at best, a defeated army that probably wants to go home as well? It is not as if he is a crusader in a far-away land, with the travel home too arduous, expensive and perilous undertaking.

Minor tinkering such as changing the accounting of the Manors to make them more consistent doesn't matter so much. Even though the 'sticker income' of the manor has increased from £6 to £10, the ordinary knightly upkeep is still £4+£2 for the family, like it was before the change. Besides, I can hardly object to it when I was one of the main guys pushing and implementing the change. I'd be curious to hear more about the impact on published adventures... I do know that the skill (and Glory) levels have changed dramatically from 1st edition to 5th edition; for instance the Grey Knight adventure has Round Table Knights like Tor running around with skills more suitable for a beginning PK in 5th edition! However, once you fix the numbers, the society they present is compatible with the 5th edition setting still. But I wonder if you had other examples in mind to share? I agree that Book of... line is optional (although some are more optional than others, IMHO), but the main point is that you end up scrapping the unified setting and GPC and adventures with alternative takes on Arthur. If Chivalry is not a thing and Arthur is just one of the regional warlords who are ambushing and raiding each other with spear-and-shield warbands measuring, at best, in a couple of hundred men, the society is radically different and the adventures that rely on a set of cultural assumptions of chivalry, amor, tournaments, travel, trade, etc, won't work anymore. Note that I am not arguing that you shouldn't do something like that in your own game. Heck, I have run Rohan mini-campaign & Late Second Age Gondor campaign using KAP system, and it works just fine. But in neither case have I been able to use the published KAP setting & adventure material. I am simply expressing doubt that such a What-If book would gain traction, but then again, I am not an employee of Chaosium, so thankfully, these considerations are not my headache.

I doubt there is enough support for something like a Book of What If/Arthurs. After all, as soon as you adopt a more radically different take on Arthur and the history, you end up tossing Book of Uther, Book of the Warlord, Book of the Estate, Book of Sires and, most importantly of all, GPC into the dust bin. And all the other ripple effects on published adventures etc. Not worth it. Instead, you could (and I suspect you already have!) look at other games that do explore different Arthurs, like GURPS Camelot ( http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG30-6041_preview.pdf ) which does have Riothamus as Arthur, or Keltia ( http://cubicle7.co.uk/what-is-keltia/ ) or Mythic Britain ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139443/Mythic-Britain ) or Age of Arthur ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/111752/Age-of-Arthur?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_2140_140_0_0 ) for a more Dark Ages Celtic Mythos take. And I am sure I am missing some, too; I was trying to recall one that is basically a hard historical Subroman Britain setting, without the fantasy elements. Granted, I have not played any of the above nor even read the rulebooks, save for GURPS Camelot. Mythic Britain uses RuneQuest 6 (Mythras) system ( http://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/TDM110 Mythras Imperative.pdf ), so it should be easy enough to hack to fit Pendragon or vice versa... Here is an adventure I found online, with a somewhat different Gawaine: http://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/Caves of the Circind.pdf