SaxBasilisk

I'll add a question of my own, as SirLarkins has stopped by and I have a feast to run Sunday: Geniality is gained when cards are drawn, not played, correct? So if a player of a 3,000 Glory PK draws two cards from the deck, the character immediately gains the Geniality from both, and then the player decides which of the two cards to play (absent any requirements on those cards that supersede that choice)? I'll add that the feast system is quite fun and has added quite a bit of character building to the game.

Player 1, grandfather - 409 - 456, Battle of Aylsford - 2238 Glory Player 1, father - 433-479, Battle of Frisia - 5,498 Glory Player 2, grandfather - 409-457. Battle of Kent - 2,244 Glory Player 2, father - 433-479, Battle of Frisia - 3,451 Glory Player 3, grandfather - 409-439, Battle of Carlion, 2561 Glory Player 3, father - 433-460, Battle of Lugo, 2989 Glory Player 4, grandfather - 409-463, Night of the Long Knives, 2,653 Glory Player 4, father - 433-469, player: "It's probably the plague," Me: "Sure!" - 1,933 Glory

I'm not so aware of the Arthurian sources - but Richard Firth Green proposes that the term "incubus" was used for much of the Middle Ages for what we would call a fairy, and thus many of the earlier stories about Merlin's miraculous conception were not intended to have a demonic cast.

None of this has been revealed yet. It will be quite possible for the knight to miss the clues leading to it, or to find out and do nothing (unlikely), or to resolve it without revealing the crime. I'd probably want to avoid a financial solution, as the PK is already under monetary duress. So the outcome is likely going to be a blood feud, or an arrangement such as the training of a squire.

Thanks again, everyone! I'm being cagey in case my players come across this thread... but the PK with Just 16 is the woman's son. Even if the justice system exonerates his mother, I know the character and the player will have some difficult choices to make.

Everyone, Thanks for your responses so far! At this point, the person's son is a rich Roman merchant or knight (haven't decided which) based out of London. One of the reasons I'm keen on finding out answers is because the primary PK in the situation has a Just of 16.

A knight secretly kills a rich traveler, taking the traveler's money for his own. His wife takes the money and spends it on behalf of her husband. Several years pass. The husband dies, and afterward the crime is discovered. The wife makes it clear she knew about where the money came from. Any ideas on how I might handle this situation (both historical and dramatic)? Would the woman be prosecuted? I believe later eras allowed the husband's influence over the wife to be a successful defense of a charge. Otherwise, I'm thinking she might need to bring in people to swear oaths on her behalf, or undergo an ordeal. What do you think?

Thanks for everyone's responses - it's good to know that I seem to be on the right track mechanically. I'll keep in mind Atgxtg's prices, but I think Morien's are a a bit closer to what will work functionally in the game. (I'm also curious as to what assumptions as to page size lie behind the book copying prices...) And I'll definitely use Jeff's suggestion about such a library bringing the character a sinister reputation. The player will likely view that as a bonus.

I have a character in my game who has expressed a desire to build a small library for her knight. Here's what I'm thinking so far: Books are rare at the GPC's beginning. Someone might be able to find a few for sale in London, and it might be possible to copy others from the collection of a monastery or a prominent Roman urban family. Such copying might take one year and cost about 2-3 Libra (given that the book gives 5d. for copying a page, and assuming these pages are pretty big). Books available are mostly Christian sacred texts, liturgies, and devotional works (Religion (Christian)). Other possible works may include those of Caesar (Battle), Cicero (Oratory), or Virgil (Compose), or treatises covering other topics such as Falconry. During the Winter Phase, the owner of books may choose one in their collection to study. If successful on a Read (Latin) check, the character gains a check in both Read (Latin) and the skill related to the book's topic (provided that skill is below 15). Any thoughts on this?

While prepping my game, I took a look at the versions of the Supreme Collegium in GPC (pp. 36-37) and Uther (p. 123). Between the two, the makeup of the Collegium has changed drastically. Although the number of members are roughly the same, the GPC version is made up mostly of nobles, while over half of the members in Uther are clergy (or at least representing ecclesiastical holdings). I haven't found a note saying why this was changed in the books or online, and it doesn't make much sense. Uther (p. 121) mentions that Rome farmed out administrative tasks to ecclesiastical officials, but that doesn't explain how the British Christian representatives got on the Collegium. This has some minor effects - such as changing Ulfius' role, and making the embassy to Lindsey in 487 of lesser importance - but it also would change Uther's game plan significantly in terms of getting support to become High King (e.g. how he handles confessions). I feel overall it pushes his actions over the line from insensitive to dumb. With that in mind, I think I'll use the GPC version in my game. What do you do?

One other catch: two of the characters have a "Finger of St. Alban" among their possessions, but only one sheet describes its effects.

I'd probably also roll damage for the First Charge and any subsequent lance charges, to see if the lance breaks and is available for subsequent rounds.

How about the household knights Lycus, Leo, and Bar, from that sidebar in GPC?

I can certainly understand not wanting to play in a society with "different values," especially if one has to deal with values in everyday life that are not so different. For my part, I'm going to have female knights in my game, and I'm going to ignore any rolls that involve PKs dying in childbirth. I'll also be ruling that half the children born are (handwaves) non-viable as knights, so we have similar dynamics in terms of succession as in the rules as written.

1) The players had just played through the encounter with the Silchester knights and had offended one of them. We were using the charts for survival from the Book of the Entourage, and it turned out that the PK's wives was going to die by violence. I decided that this was the action of the Silchester knight, quite the dastardly deed. The PK mourned a bit, then he got his friends together, rode to Silchester, and killed the guy. He remarried a year or so thereafter, before he was killed. 2) Another player lost his wife and went into a prolonged period of mourning, choosing not to remarry for the rest of our (short) campaign.

How do you run games with multiple characters per player in Pendragon? Specific problems: 1) A particular year has a battle. Do all the characters usually show up? Does the player have a choice of sending or keeping away certain characters? (I assume at least one character must show, and all characters have to show at pivotal battles - but what about the less crucial ones?) 2) Vassal knights get a lot of skill checks in the winter phase. By my reading of the end-of-year rules, household knights get one. Am I missing something? If I'm not, do you follow the rules as written, or grant more checks to them? Thanks!

If you're about to participate in a Discord Pendragon campaign, please ignore this. So... I'm getting ready to run the GPC, but I want to make one minor change... The son of Uther, Madoc, will be named Arthur instead. After his son's death at Terrabil in 491, Uther decides to give his new son the same name. Everything else proceeds as normal. The upside of this is that it will definitely be a shock to the players and lead to more focus on the game itself and less ancillary material. The two Arthurs are chronologically apart enough in the game that I don't think there's much a chance of confusion. What do you think?

I'm not sure if this is actually an error. Page 80, Cambria, year 455: Half the Cornovii are moved to Cornwall, but the characters of Cornovii heritage aren't given an option to have their family move to Cornwall and start rolling on those event tables, as members of other cultural groups may.

I'm getting ready to start running the Great Pendragon Campaign. I'd like each player to start with a vassal knight and a household knight as a backup, with both being grandsons of the same knight. The trouble is, the rules don't seem to make an allowance for rolling up younger characters. I'd also like to avoid a bunch of family complications or handwaving the history. I know I could come up with some explanation involving bastard sons or twins or other arrangements, but all of these seem unsatisfying. How would you handle this?