Morien

Here are the simple house rules rules I use to quickly resolve our yearly Pentecostal Grand Melee. 1. (Eschille) Leader rolls Battle vs. Battle 15. (While I have not implemented it yet, this could modify the other three skills, below. Giving bonuses to PKs is dangerous, since it can easily push them into the critting territory, which unbalances things severely. So perhaps just give the losing side a -5 modifier, if the difference is larger than one step: success vs partial = 0, success vs fail or critical vs partial = -5, success vs fumble or critical vs fail = -10. This would make successes much more common for the winning side, without pushing them straight into Criticals.) 2. Everyone rolls Horsemanship, Lance and Melee*, vs. 15. (* Melee weapon skill of their choice, although I would limit it to one-handed weapons, i.e. Sword, Spear, Axe, Mace, Hammer, that they can use from horseback.) 3. Each success grants 20 Glory, including Battle, and Criticals net 60 (vs. partial success) or 120 (vs. failure, you did very well!). 4. Partial success gives 10 Glory, Failure 5 Glory and Fumble 0 Glory. If opposition roll was a critical, downgrade the PK's result by one, as far as Glory is concerned. On Lance and Sword, roll Damage as normal (7d6 lance, 5d6 sword), but anything through the armor is halved, unless the PK fumbled, in which case the damage is not halved. Note also that opposition critical roll increases the damage as per usual. First Aid can be used on these 'bruises' as if they are a single wound each. On a fumbled Horsemanship, the PK falls off his horse and takes 1d6 falling damage. The same system can be used for smaller, regional tournaments, but the Glory amounts should be halved.

Yep, that is correct. The 1d20 per year is intended to just be the generic event glory for the years we don't follow more closely.

No, that 9d20 represents the 9 years from 430 to 438, for which we don't give yearly events. Then the yearly events start and the grandfather survives as long as he survives.

Heh. I had 2,866 posts on the old Nocturnal Media Forum. I have some catching up to do! I like talking about KAP and being helpful, so yeah, I pretty much stick my nose into whatever thread is open, if I think I can contribute something useful.

But not necessarily one that they'd pick... Yes, at the starting skill value of 5, as per BoK&L. This is a reasonable way of doing it, too. I would apply the Father's Class modifiers, as per Stewardship, though. A daughter of a merchant should know less about defending a castle than a daughter of a baron. EDIT: Actually, refreshing my memory about how the skill assignment works in ENTOURAGE, I think we are actually on the same page here: Fashion/Siege doesn't automatically improve to 10, but remains at 5. I think this switch you propose is a very good one. This also means that the Stewardship modifier is probably a bit too harsh: halving it seems to give more reasonable numbers.

I'd say no. High Siege skill is not that common, unless (or even if) the wife happens to be a Chatelaine (female Castellan). Certainly not all 20 year old ladies have it at 10! Even in the GPC example, Lady Jane has Siege of 3, despite defending an actual castle. (BoK&L has Cymric Ladies starting with Siege 5, Siege 2 in Romance and after.) However, if it would fit the lady's background (she has been defending the family castle against Saxons for some years now) then I would consider allowing Siege as one of the three picks. But this would be very extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, I would be happy for them to have Siege 5 and increase it if they are actually using that skill in game.

Book of Sires has your back on this. It is scalable to whatever starting year up to 510, as long as you are in Logres. It explicitly supports starting years 480 (Book of Uther) and 485 (GPC). If you are using Book of Sires, I very much would recommend putting aside a session to run it more or less as a prequel for the players, even before they make their actual PKs. This helps to ground them in the history of their homeland(s). Note that it is quite easy to have families starting from all over, and ending up in the same place (Salisbury) for the campaign start, which gives it a lot more flexibility compared to the KAP 5.2. That being said, if you don't have Book of Sires, you can make do with KAP 5.2 for a Salisbury campaign. The main events are still there, and it is easy enough to push the births of PK and the Father back by 5 years. No biggie.

No worries, good luck with GMing! We are now in 521 (second playthrough for me as the GM, a (mostly) new group).

Hmm. I see it now. No KAP category, though. I guess it would go to Historical - Other...

enora.dk hosted some of my stuff but alas, I am not web-savvy myself. drpendragon.com is Thijs' site, and the knight & warlord generators there are based on generator we did together for Book of the Warlord. I think this place allows for attachments, so let me go back to my files and start a new thread with some random wives for you to use in your campaign... EDIT: Note that these wives are based on my own wife generator and are not fully compatible with the system in ENTOURAGE. I have been thinking about making a generator for the ENTOURAGE system, but thus far, I have not mustered the will. EDIT2: I decided to just attach them here. The titles of the txt files should be obvious, with 'random' and 'vassal' referring to the father's class. The number row is just a number going 1 - 1000, so if you roll 1d1000, you can easily find the lady in question. See this old thread in the Nocturnal Forum for more: http://nocturnalmediaforum.com/iecarus/forum/showthread.php?1939-Wife-candidate-generator&p=16504&viewfull=1#post16504 1000_cymric_christian_wives_random.txt 1000_cymric_pagan_wives_random.txt 1000_cymric_pagan_wives_vassal.txt 1000_cymric_christian_wives_vassal.txt 1000_roman_christian_wives_vassal.txt 1000_roman_christian_wives_random.txt

Yeah, definitely. One of the interesting things in the whole tabletop RPing is that things change depending on the GM and the players. This keeps things fresher, I find. That being said, Uther (at least in GPC) is not supposed to be a Good King, but a Great King. He is a warrior king, seizing life with both hands and taking what he wants. And he saves Logres from the Saxons at least twice, Battle of Lincoln and Battle of St. Albans. Thrice, if you count Battle of Mt. Damen. That is not a bad record for a king. It is Arthur who is both Great and Good and ushers in the Golden Age. Uther is supposed to be flawed.

In the Nocturnal Forums, jmberry made this guess: "A minor change I just noticed is that Sir Jaradan (from the Salisbury section) has had his name changed to Sir Jarren. Given that Jaradan is supposed to be a Marshall in 531, I can understand the change to them being different characters (Jaradan would have had to be at least 67 in 531 otherwise)." Alas, given the flavor text, my personal belief is that 'Jarren' should be renamed to 'Jaradan'.

I am 99.9% convinced it is a typo, since on the south coast, we have the opposite typo: Pevensey is typoed as Devensey. I wonder if the labels were hand-written by Greg, and whoever made the labels in the map, mistook one D as P and another P as D. I mean, it all depends where the arc ends...

You are quite welcome. Besides, it is your campaign. If something later contradicts what you have established, your campaign consistency should be the key. Like Greg was fond of saying: Your Pendragon WILL Vary. Just as an example: In our first campaign, Robert was killed in the Roman War, and his son was assassinated in a tournament in early Romance, and the grandson died as a baby. This left Robert's daughter, also named Jenna, as the heiress of Salisbury. As a major heiress, her hand was pursued by such worthies as Agravaine and Mordred, and Arthur dumped the decision to the Salisbury knights: which one would they rather have as their liege lord? This led to the immortal words of one of the PKs, as a rationale why he voted for Agravaine: "If we choose Agravaine, Mordred will probably not be too pissed off about it, but if we choose Mordred, Agravaine will never forgive us." Agravaine's & Jenna's (eventually unhappy) marriage and the death of all of their three sons in the Yellow Plague were major drivers for the big plot for the rest of the storyline. Never happened in GPC, but made the campaign oh so much more interesting, as the PKs were very much mixed up in the whole De Gales - Orkney feud. Agravaine's love affair with a player-character lady was arguably the reason why the Round Table split: Jenna found out and eventually went public with it, and had Guinever's support. This made Agravaine Guinever's mortal enemy (whereas before, the Orkneys had been strong supporters of the (barren) Queen, as Gawaine was the heir), and when the opportunity came to catch Guinever herself in an adultery with Lancelot, Agravaine leapt at the chance, leading to the splitting of the Round Table. Oh, as an aside, in this campaign, Mordred was never revealed as Arthur's son, and it was debatable how much of a 'baddie' he was. A more sympathetic portrayal of Mordred, if you will.

I managed to find this after poking around for a bit: http://medievalaccommodation.com/manor/ Although as it says in the later history, most of the fireplaces and spiral stairs are from the start of the 17th century. But might do for a more expensive stone manor house in later periods? Some more examples of the larger, stone ones... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ightham_Mote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markenfield_Hall But yeah, the Wikipedia page on Hall House ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_house ) that you mentioned seems like a nice resource, too.

Uther's lust for Ygraine has been a staple of the stories for a long time. Argan & Dyagenne, and Uther's duel with the former and seduction of the latter that caused the said duel, are from Prose Tristan, IIRC. Anyway, the point is that Uther as a Horndog has existed prior to KAP5.x.

Not only that. The liege has to approve the 'adoption', and he has a definite interest in not approving it unless the PK is in favor. After all, the manor might default back to the liege. Also, it is possible that there are uncles and cousins of the heiress who would also like to make a claim for the manor by the right of their blood, if the heiress dies without children of her own. I admit that I don't quite understand why the heiress would be so eager to hand over the inheritance of any of her future children, though? Even if she gets daughters, surely she would rather see her own children get the manor, become heiresses, and marry well? And yes, her daughters would inherit her manor, not those two stepsons, who have no bloodclaim whatsoever on her manor. If she adopts the stepsons, then things become much, much more convoluted. I admit that I don't know any historical medieval cases off the top of my head where this worked out... But I seem to recall that your game is actually set closer to the Roman Era, right? Then the adoption might not be a big deal; Romans did it all the time. Although it was the Pater Familias who did the adopting, and the adoptee became a member of that second family, leaving his original family... Nor were the Classical Romans feudal; the manor would count as her private property so she could just will it to whomever. It is clear this is not how landownership works in Uther's time, though. In the end, it is a big mess for you to sort out as the GM! Much easier if she gets pregnant and doesn't adopt!

Yeah, marry early and get some heirs of your own... Don't worry about heiresses yet. In fact, my advice would be to forget about marrying an heiress yourself. Instead, aim to arrange a match for your eldest son. The advantages of this approach: 1.) You have, hopefully, 20 years worth of Glory, Favors, and relationship-building with your Liege and any potential heiresses' fathers. You can cash those in. 2.) This way, your next character (eldest son) will get the heiress' manor by the right of marriage. If you'd marry the heiress yourself, then the manor would go down to HER eldest son with you, i.e., starting a cadet branch rather than increasing the stature of the main branch. (Granted, this is not necessarily a bad thing.) 3.) You can marry early and get those heirs and spares, rather than chase the heiresses yourself, delaying your dynastic aspirations for years. 4.) Arranged marriages were the norm. Also, this allows your next character to marry 'right away', once he is knighted, and start having children of his own. This way, you have a healthy dynasty to continue after you, and if you don't manage to live long enough to get the heiress for your son, then you wouldn't have lived long enough to get one for yourself, either.

Speaking of bastards... Given Uther's Lustful nature, and his habit of bedding laundresses and other pretty servant wenches, there must be at least SOME common-born bastards out there. Probably not that many noble-born bastards, save for Madoc, who is acknowledged in 480. So that might be the big difference; even though the daughter is just a granddaughter of Uther, she is still the daughter of a Prince and a former Heir Presumptive (while he was alive). And the mother is a famous knight (probably by the end of Uther Period), even if she doesn't marry Madoc. Any noble-born bastards of Uther, even if not acknowledged, could easily be used as pawns to bolster the claim of anyone seeking the throne of Logres. That being said, at least in GPC, no such candidates pop up, and the rivals for the throne try to claim it by right of conquest/might rather than by blood: Idres, Nanteleod and (to a lesser extent) Cerdic (who actually does have a blood claim via Vortigern), Ulfius and Corneus (the latter two implied in the meeting of 496). This implies that there are not any noble bastards of Uther out there, especially since (IIRC) someone (Wessex?) was trying to kidnap Morgan and Ygraine out of Amesbury Abbey in GPC to use their connection to Uther to bolster the kidnapper's claim. If there were actual known descendants of Uther running around, surely they would make for a better claim by marriage than Uther's stepdaughter or wife.

There is no such information, no. There are some indications of age in the case of some of the barons, especially Dukes and Counts, but for the vast majority of them, nothing was nailed down. Most of them are probably already married, but given how young Jenna is during Uther Period, they might be trying to fix her up with their own son. After all, Jenna's dowry is generous enough to make her very worthy of being pursued by Barons and/or Baronial heir. No one of lesser stature should even bother, unless they are like Uther's best buddy, and even then, Uther would be more likely to fix the guy up with someone else than to twist Roderick's arm over Jenna. Marrying even an 'ordinary' heiress is very, very difficult. If the father is still alive, his goal is to marry her up as high as possible, which tends to mean going after estate holders, bannerets and minor barons (and their heirs, of course). A mere normal vassal knight is not as good a deal for him: would you rather have your grandchildren being heirs to an estate holder or to a 1-manor vassal knight? If the father is dead, then it is the liege lord who controls who the heiress will marry, and he has a loooong list of deserving household knights to reward, too. People who have been with him, 24/7, for the last twenty years, through thick and thin. The PKs will need to really distinguish themselves to make up for that gap both in service time & camaraderie. And just to make sure I make my main point crystal clear: MARRYING AN HEIRESS IS NOT THE DEFAULT!

You are quite welcome. I do worry a bit that maybe the x10 is a bit too much, as you could get 70+ Glory for even a small feast and 160+ Glory for a Royal Feast. Perhaps x2, x3 and x5 would be better. Or even: Geniality < Length: x0. No Glory for you, you boor. Geniality >= Length: x1 Geniality >= 2 x Length: x2 Geniality >= 3 x Length: x5 (replaces the Most Congenial reward) I'd have to do some number crunching to see how that works, but admittedly I am thinking the x2, x3, x5 is probably the best compromise between rewarding at least some Glory and not making the Feasts too Glorious as a default. I don't mind PKs getting a couple of tens of Glory per scened Feast, it is the couple of hundred that is way too much for my taste.

I don't see this as a big issue. New players won't have characters with Traits over 20. And explaining that the minimum trait is 0, even if the other trait is over 20, is not any more complicated than saying that once the trait is past 20, it is written 20 (+excess). By the time new players get there (if ever), they are already familiar with the system. Also, this is only a problem with Traits, not with Passions nor Skills. Like I said above, I do see a small advantage in that 20 (+3) shows the die roll addition beforehand, so you don't have to calculate it. However, subtracting 20 is dead easy: for skills 21-29, you just take the 2 away. Values of 30 or over are very rare and usually only come up in very special circumstances with plenty of modifiers, in which case it is worth while taking a moment to ensure that they are correct. By contrast, +5/-5 modifiers come all the time. 23-5 = 18 is faster than 3-5 = -2 & 20 - 2 = 18.

Except I thought that it would still work the same, 17+3 = 20 = crit. Otherwise Lancelot will turn from a killing machine into a 'eh, he is good, but not that much better'. Personally, I don't see a big benefit here. A small advantage to those less mathematically gifted that the bonus is calculated beforehand, at the cost of making it even more complicated when modifiers come in and in notation (23 is easier than 20 (+3) in an excel sheet). The Glory amount is negligible.

It was "Dance of the Giants [plural]" in Histories of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffry of Monmouth, tr. by Sebastian Evans, [1904], at sacred-texts.com ( http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/gem/gem09.htm ), and thus Giants' Dance. And in KAP 5.2, p. 65. Also, since the origins was dancing giants who had been turned to stone, the plural makes more sense, although I have seen the singular being used, too. Anyway, my main point is that the pre-existence of the stone circle prior to 470 Sacred Stones was based on Greg's intentions on Stonehenge, and thus is not a mistake, and whether we settle on singular or plural, it should be used throughout rather than change from year to year.

ENTOURAGE (Revised v1.3), p. 20: "All ladies (daughters of knights) have a Base Inherited Glory of (5d6+10)× 10." I don't know where you get (5d6+6)x20 from? The daughters of knight officers get x20, but the roll in parenthesis is still 5d6+10. This is where Greg's intent of Stonehenge's origins differed from HRB's. Giants' Dance already exists in Salisbury, and only SOME of the stones are transported by Merlin and ADDED to the pre-existing stone circle. (You can also see that in KAP 5.2 Family History, Stonehenge already exists in 463.) What IS a mistake is that it is being called Giant's Dance and not Giants' Dance in some pages.