Morien

My point is that the Genetic Culture (i.e. the Stat modifiers that you inherit from your parents) have nothing to do with the Societal Culture, and vice versa. It is unfortunate that the former is called Culture too, since it confuses the issue. My issue was with your statement that a child of Roman parents would suddenly switch Cymric (with +3 CON) if he was raised in Salisbury. Now if we are talking about the Societal Culture, I agree with you. But he would still retain the +1 DEX and +2 APP of his Roman parents. Mind you, if he was born of Pictish Heathen parents, I would allow him to pick Religion as Heathen as well, rather than force Christianity or (Celtic) Paganism. But then again, I generally let the players pick whatever religion they want (within reason).

OK, let me try to clarify... The 'problem' is that BotK&L is using Culture labels, such as Roman in two different things: the family heritage of the character (i.e. the Statistic modifiers), which is what the Culture is in the basic rulebook, and the societal culture (i.e. Passions). I can see why it is doing this, but frankly, the information on p. 50 should have been up front, IMHO. 1.) Bloodline Culture (Statistic modifiers): This is clearly determined by your parentage: if your parents have the same Culture, that is the Culture you will have too, and if they differ, then you roll dice to see which side you favor (see p. 50). 2.) Societal Culture (Passions & Trait modifiers), which is set by your Homeland (see p. 50). This has nothing to do with your bloodline and everything to do where you grow up. So, a son of Cymric parents would have (Bloodline) Culture: Cymric. This is what would go to the culture box of the character sheet, because that is how Greg set it up originally. However, his Societal Culture depends where he grew up. If he grew up in Salisbury, he would use Cymric Passions and Salisbury Trait/Passion modifiers. If he grew up in London, he would use Roman Passions and London Trait/Passion modifiers. Does this help to clarify things? As for the historicity of the thing... It is part of KAP history that the Empire washes its hands of Britain in 410. Not only that, we do have the Western Empire falling in 476 in BotK&L and the Ostrogoths taking over. It is right there in the Italian section. These things happen in KAP history, too, even though Uther's Britain bears a much closer resemblance to Norman England of 1100s. Part of the Loyalty is reciprocity. The liege, the Emperor, abandoned Britain in 410, nor have any of his successors come to try and reclaim their right. Britons elected a High King to lead them instead. Hence, there should be no Loyalty to the Emperor in Rome; the bastards abandoned Britain to the barbarians for over a century before they come back demanding tribute in 520s! As Atgxgt suggested, I could go with the Pendragons claiming the Imperial Purple, which is what Arthur does at the start of the Roman War, while at the same time rejecting any claim that the (false) emperor in Rome would have on Britain: "And when King Arthur understood their courages and good wills he thanked them heartily, and after let call the ambassadors to hear their answer. And in presence of all his lords and knights he said to them in this wise: I will that ye return unto your lord and Procuror of the Common Weal for the Romans, and say ye to him, Of his demand and commandment I set nothing, and that I know of no truage nor tribute that I owe to him, nor to none earthly prince, Christian nor heathen; but I pretend to have and occupy the sovereignty of the empire, wherein I am entitled by the right of my predecessors, sometime kings of this land; and say to him that I am delibered and fully concluded, to go with mine army with strength and power unto Rome, by the grace of God, to take possession in the empire and subdue them that be rebel. Wherefore I command him and all them of Rome, that incontinent they make to me their homage, and to acknowledge me for their Emperor and Governor, upon pain that shall ensue." I could go even a step back* and simply say that the Romans simply use Emperor interchangeably with High King. Simply out of cultural snobbery. 'High King' is, after all, more of a Celtic title. So even while Constantin's bloodline wouldn't officially claim the title of a Western Roman Emperor, their Roman subjects would refer to them as 'Emperor Aurelius' rather than 'High King Aurelius'. Of course, in Uther's time, he is not the High King, which would make a small dilemma with this reasoning. Unless the Roman city folk just decide to continue buttering Uther up by referring to him with the higher title. * Well actually, like I said before, I would simply eliminate the passion altogether. Much easier.

Nope. You inherit your Culture from your parents, see p. 50 of BoK&L. Ha, that same Mixed Marriages box actually gives the answer: "Naturally, the Traits will be for whatever religion he is raised into, and the Passions will be from the place he grows up in." The Statistics bonuses depend on the parents, and since that is the primary thing the Culture label is for... Anyway, looks like we have the answer. A Roman-heritage PK in Salisbury would get +1 DEX and +2 APP (Roman stat boni, from memory) and use the Cymric Passions on p. 48. A Cymric-heritage PK in Dorsette would get +3 CON and use Roman Passions on p.48. (Mind you, I still think having Loyalty (Emperor) is silly since there is no Emperor in Rome in 480. This is actually treasonous once you get to the 520s and the Roman War, although past the Roman War, you could claim that Arthur is the lawful Emperor. Easier to just ditch it.) (As a shameless plug for Book of Sires, the above (characters of different culture and even religion ending up in a new homeland) can very easily happen in Book of Sires.) (Also, as Greg was fond of saying, Your Pendragon Will Vary. I always took those Culture / Religion descriptions more as guidelines, what the dominant Culture & Religion was. The PKs are individuals, and surely there is room for a Pagan PK even if the region doesn't list that. Admittedly, though, the book itself phrases this more sternly, but I am going to go with the authorial intent here. Besides, forcing the player to play a random Culture/Religion combination is usually not a good thing, in my experience. I have had a couple of players who have stated flat out that they will not play Christians, for example, and I seem to recall similar anecdotes from other GMs, Greg included.)

I agree with you, Luca. It took me a moment to see that for some obscure reason, in BotK&L the starting passions are different by Culture, which is odd. It should be by Homeland, surely. A Roman knight born and raised in Salisbury, a vassal knight to Count Roderick, would not have Loyalty to some city but to his Lord. And definitely not to some distant Emperor who basically told the Britons to 'look after your own defenses' in 410. Which lead to 5 years of civil war, anarchy and pillaging by the barbarian invaders, until they finally got their act together, summoned Constantin to be the new High King, and proceeded to kick the invaders out. Surely that experience would have soured the Romano-Britons (AKA Romans in KAP) to the do-nothing emperor, especially since by 480, there is no legitimate Western Emperor! Odoacer deposed him in 476. So yeah, I think BotK&L got this one wrong. I can see Loyalty (City) if the 'City' is the liege equivalent in this relationship. I.e. whichever magistrate is in charge in this year, can summon the equites of the City to fight. But definitely not the Emperor. EDIT: To add a bit to that... I wouldn't have a problem with a Roman Knight, even if his primary residence is in the countryside (e.g. Dorsette), to still have Loyalty (City) (e.g. Dorchester); just because he lives in his villa/manor doesn't mean that he has cut himself off from the City, and he might still be a 'citizen' of that City as well. But if he has another liege lord, he should have Homage (Liege Lord), too.

No. Durotriges are so Romanized that they count as 'Roman'*. Book of Knights & Ladies, p. 22: Dorchester (City) [Dorset, Logres], Roman/Roman Chr. Dorset [Logres], Roman/Roman Chr. * Roman in KAP doesn't mean ethnic Roman, but like it say, Culture: Roman. So the vast majority of the Romans living in Britain are Romanized Britons who retain the more urbanized Roman culture.

Starting with Chivalric was pretty much the default for the christian knights in our 4th -> 5.1th edition GPC campaign, and most pagan knights got there within a few years, too. It was ODD for a PK not to have it, since it was so useful. In our new 5.2ed GPC playthrough, I have adopted the following rule: 1.) There are 6 Chivalric Traits + 1 Chivalric Passion, i.e. Honor. 2.) As you collect these to Famous/Notable levels (16+), you start unlocking the Armor of Honor: 3 Traits/Passions at 16+: +1 Armor 5 Traits/Passions at 16+: +2 Armor 7 Traits/Passions at 16+: +3 Armor Works like a treat, allowing people to inch up to the uber +3 Armor, rather than making Chivalric a strict binary yes/no proposition. Also, since it requires 16+ Traits/Passions, it means that the darned PKs had better ACT Chivalric, or I will ding them with a check on the opposite trait and they will start losing bonuses. Something that irked me to great extent in 80 point Chivalric was that it was very possible to reach that with almost starting traits, 13 in 4 traits and 14 in 2, with no Famous Traits whatsoever. Bah, humbug! Final advantage is that while Truly Pagan Knights will never get the +3 Armor, they can reach the +2 Tier even while being Famously Proud*. Some might see that as a problem, I see it as a desirable feature. (* Mind you, while I have not had to deal with this yet, I think it would be fair to give -1 to the Trait count for each Opposite Famous Trait. So the Pagan knight would have to be otherwise perfect: 6 Chivalric Traits/Passions at 16+ - 1 Opposite Famous Trait = equivalent to 5 so +2 Armor.) Furthermore, I give no extra Glory for being Chivalric or Religious, since we do give out Trait & Passion Glory. So someone who is Religious already gets 80+ Glory from Traits, so I'll be damned before I will give an extra +100 on top of that. Using the above scheme for Chivalri, someone with the full +3 Armor of Honor would get 7*16 = 102 Glory at minimum. I think that is reputation boost enough.

As I stated, Sulien was a typo on my part. Baroness Sulwyn, who is being discussed here, has no relationship with Sulien. Even if she did, Sulien is from Bedegraine (which is Cymric/British Christian) and is the Count of Bedegraine, not Jagent. He simply holds a castle in Jagent (no doubt given to him by Uther to tie him more to Logres). (Also, Picts are British Christian or Heathen, not Pagans, at least in my version of BoK&L.) There was a nice discussion in Nocturnal Forums whether the Pagans should have Lustful in the first place. In any case, Lustful should not mean that the Pagan Ladies cheat on their husbands at every opportunity and their husbands would be fine being cuckolded (although I would make an exception perhaps for Beltaine celebrations... what happens in Beltaine stays in Beltaine). Unmarried ladies having bastards would be a no-no. The King would not have any obligation to give the bastards the same rights as the legitimate children. Greg's dishonor rules didn't have any provision for Pagan Ladies. If you look at the religious make-up of Logres, it is OVERWHELMINGLY Christian. You get a sprinkling of Cymric/Pagan around Savage Forest (Lonazep, Brun, Lambor, Wuerensis) and only in Brun are they the majority. You have Pagans in Salisbury so that the starting PKs can be pagan, but clearly even there, Christianity is the religion of the majority. Now once you go outside of Logres, especially to Cambria and Caledonia, you are on a much better footing. I could more easily accept that in those, majority pagan kingdoms, acknowledged bastards from concubines would be as good as legitimate children. Although I would still expect that the kings would be pretty jealous over their queens, since any lovers that the queen would have might plant a cuckoo in the royal nest...

Multiple crits? In the feast while flirting with her or something? Or multiple crits during his whole career, referring to the Glory he has gained? The latter has naught to do with it. The former is a different matter; I managed to get a player who rolled two crits while dancing and flirting with a princess, so I went with it, but that was explicitly a higher powered game and stretched over a longer timespan, meaning that once we'd pick up the family, it would be a couple of generations down the line already. Long story. My point is that while HE might think he is too good for wenches, why should SHE think he is good enough for HER? In any case, your campaign, your call. I do wonder a bit, though. Since if you go by the rules for the heiresses, there should be just two ways that she can be a ruling Baroness: 1) She has already married & widowed 2-3 times (I forget which one Greg finally settled on, I think 3) and hence she is free to do what she wants and pick her own husband. But she has absolutely no need for one, save for gaining an heir, which is a pretty darn good reason. In this case, I could very well see her being quite flirty with knights, trying to find one who would be a suitable husband for her, one who would not try to reduced her to a mere broodmare. Still, having a child out of wedlock would be very bad form, and Uther would be under no legal obligation to acknowledge the bastard as a legitimate heir, so it would be useless from that standpoint, too. 2) She is confirmed as a Baroness by Uther for his own reasons, and given what we know about Uther, she might even be his ex-mistress. Or she was confirmed by Aurelius (father having been a good buddy or something) and Uther is unable to compel her to marry, since she is no longer a ward. Personally, I would have added some kids to make it less likely that the player's next PK will be a Baron (assuming he succeeds in his intentions, rather than her being married to someone else, especially since it sounds like he has a high chance of dying at St. Albans, being so heroic, too), but then again, he could always play the Spare instead. I simply dislike having such a big gap of wealth amongst the PKs, not to mention that it would move the Baron PK out of the orbit of Salisbury, hence having much less reason to hang around with other PKs. Of course, the Spare could be given the lands in Salisbury, which would take care of that. While she could be dispossessed/usurped by whoever, there would be a high chance of Arthur restoring her or her children to their claim.

Since Sulien was a Northern lord recently defeated by Uther, and that he rules Jagent, which is populated by Pict Pagans, the fact that the could be Pagan is a distinct possibility. As could be the Baroness. And considering that we are talking Uther reign we are hardly at at the high middle ages yet in the game. Sorry, my typo. Baroness SULWYN. No relation of Sulien of BEDEGRAINE. I am not sure where you got Jagent? In any case, Hidden Vale is in Clarence, which is solidly Christian. Book of the Warlord and Book of Uther make it very clear that the historical parallel is the Norman kings of England (1066 -1154), as far as the society and the administration of the realm goes. That is High Middle Ages (about 1000 - 1250). Personally, the parallel I'd draw with Uther is: - Martial prowess of William I (the Conqueror) - (Lack of) Piety of William II (Rufus) - Amorous appetites of Henry I

Given that we are talking of Baroness Sulien in Book of the Warlord, we are pretty solidly in the high medieval worldview. Also, see Greg's webpage about ladies and chastity. Now YPMV, of course, and Uther being the horndog that he is, I could see a GM running the setting differently. But from what I can tell, Chastity is supposed to be a big deal. Thanks. I have been lurking around a couple of weeks when the Nocturnal Forum was locked down, but didn't have much to say before.

Well I guess it is too late to cry over spilt milk, but... Chastity was a huge deal for unmarried noble women. Having a bastard (unless it was with a king or a king's son) was a huge no-no, and would probably land the woman in a nunnery for the rest of her life. It is not as in the modern world with plentiful and safe contraceptives and less of a stigma for sex outside marriage. Amor tended to be directed towards married women for a reason. No virginity to spoil, and if there was a baby, hey, who could tell exactly who the father was? Which is another thing why the noble women were kept under such a close surveillance, to ensure that they would stay faithful to their husbands. Not that courtly amor existed under Uther anyway. I'd interpret the 'tryst' as much less than 'and then they had sex'. Making out, heavy petting, but not the final step. That is way too risky for a noble woman. Granted, a lower-ranking woman might take a promise of a marriage as gospel (since it was as good as), but the man could disavow it later if there were no witnesses. The PK's best chance would be right after the Anarchy. Marry the Baroness and kill anyone who says otherwise. Have some babies with her (if she is not too old*), bend a knee to Nanteleod, and by the time Arthur comes along, it is already an established fact. Can't wait for a royal permission when there is no king, after all. This might even work if the Baroness is against the idea, although then you probably need a bigger army. * Easiest way to handle this as a GM, IMHO: Have her a widow with already a couple/a few kids, including at least one son. Make her old enough that by 495, she is unlikely to have any more. Then, she and the PK can potentially (if he earns it) marry, the PK can lord it over the rest of his life (but with great power comes great responsibility, and with Clarence and Glevum at odds, Hidden Vale will be in danger of getting smacked around, too). This way, there is no Baron PK to throw off your campaign due to the power level imbalance.