Help sought re knight in love!

[Uqbarian]

So, I have a PK who rolled a Love (Wife) of 16. Does anyone have suggestions for plotlines/scenarios that can make use of this? There's always the old villain-abducts-wife routine, and also enemies of the PK accusing the wife of something awful, but I'm trying to come up with something a bit less obvious.

[Leingod]

38 minutes ago, Uqbarian said:

So, I have a PK who rolled a Love (Wife) of 16. Does anyone have suggestions for plotlines/scenarios that can make use of this? There's always the old villain-abducts-wife routine, and also enemies of the PK accusing the wife of something awful, but I'm trying to come up with something a bit less obvious.

In terms of published adventures, you could tweak something like "The Adventure of the Castle of Tears" from Blood & Lust (which itself is just a take on an adventure Tristram and Iseult had in their own stories). Or really anything in that vein, where the villain doesn't abduct your lady love, but she's still put in peril nonetheless by the evil custom of the castle or cursed land or wherever.

There's also "The Adventure of the Sorceress Bride" in Forest Perilous, where it turns out the PK's wife is a secret pagan sorceress who transforms into a panther at night and causes trouble on his lands, though that might be a little mean to inflict on a player just because he rolled a high Love (Wife). On the other hand, if the transformation was actually a curse he has to break...

[Morien]

Somewhat more mundane:

1) The wife has a request to make. Maybe she is soft-hearted and wants you to give something back to the peasants, especially if it is a bad harvest and you have loot from a recent battle to tide you over. Maybe she is anxious to see the glories of the big cities (mainly Camelot if it already exists, but London might work, too, especially if this is pre-Anarchy or post-Boy King), and do some shopping (or a more religious variant, a pilgrimage to a religious site, perhaps to pray for a healthy child if the marriage has been unfruitful for the first couple of years). Maybe she wants you to take her nephew as a new squire or convince one of your adventuring buddies to do so. Maybe she gets bit by this new fashion of Amor, and wants you to woo her even though you are already happily married. Get that harp out and start strumming!

2) Speaking of Amor (or just a seduction), maybe another knight is casting his gaze towards the wife. Depending on your Suspicious, maybe you spot this first, or maybe the wife comes to you with a complaint that this knight is hounding her. A good opportunity for a duel inspired by Love (Wife) and getting that other knight to leave her alone.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Morien

[Uqbarian]

Thanks, folks! I'm thinking on the mundane side, but I'll look up those adventures too. We're in the Uther period. A shopping trip to London could be an adventure in itself, so I might try that.

[7dot62mm]

The wife of the player knight could also have a Deceitful of 18 and might do bad things behind his back. On hearing of these the knight will have to match his Trust (whomever tells him) vs. his Love (Wife) to believe these rumors.

 

[Atgxtg]

I depends on how much/far you want to go with it. Basically, it's a passion and can be used to pull the PK into any sort of direction or adventure you want. Give the wife a high Love (Family) and some relatives in some sort of trouble and you can use it to many any adventure more personal to the PK. 

Another thing you could do is give the wife desire some new bauble, article of clothing, rare food, whatever. Something that is rare and somewhat difficult to obtain, and then see if the PK goes out on his way to obtain it. For instance if the wife is just dying for a silk dress from Paris, one far to expensive for the PK, but he knows a French knight who knows someone who could provide the dress, if the PK could deal with some little matter of bandits, a giant, Saxon Pirates, huge marauding cat, Faerie Knight, whatever. It all really comes down to how many hoops you want the PK to jump through.

Or you could have the wife doing something in secret, drop some hints to the PK, and see what he does about it. You could have her secretly buying him something nice for a present and just wanted to keep it a surprise. The PK comes home early from a trip, sees a magnificent warhorse in the stable, finds her wife entertaining Sir Gawiane, and discovers that she talked Gawain into finding one of those Frisian Destriers that the PK always talked about. 

I wouldn't overdo it, though. A high Love (Wife) shouldn't be a penalty. Even if the wife is deceitful and doing so bad things, don't necessarily just have her be completely wicked just to mess with the player. That's just picking on the player. Of course if she were  already made out to be wicked in the past, that's another story.

[Uqbarian]

Yeah, I know it's a passion and I'm not planning on making it a penalty -- it's more just that I had a mental blank on relevant plot ideas for a moment. Thanks for the suggestions!

Edited June 27, 2020 by Uqbarian

[Hzark10]

I will add one more: maybe your wife was shown up recently at court.  She wants to put that person into her place.  And needs you to do...

This could be very simple and not stressful at all and simply a one-shot. Or that person could be of higher rank, or she then retaliates and has her own husband/lover...

[Atgxtg]

Wives also bring in-laws.

[Tizun Thane]

On 6/27/2020 at 8:36 AM, Uqbarian said:

So, I have a PK who rolled a Love (Wife) of 16. Does anyone have suggestions for plotlines/scenarios that can make use of this? There's always the old villain-abducts-wife routine, and also enemies of the PK accusing the wife of something awful, but I'm trying to come up with something a bit less obvious.

Was the marriage arranged by the count orthe families? What are the feelings of the bride herself about their union? What is her chaste/honor value? Is she a good wife for the character?
Maybe the best way to surprise the player could be to play her like a real woman, with feelings and goals. I would play it at first a bit like a romantic comedy, with trivials events to play the dynamics beetween the two characters.

[Uqbarian]

17 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

Was the marriage arranged by the count orthe families? What are the feelings of the bride herself about their union? What is her chaste/honor value? Is she a good wife for the character?
Maybe the best way to surprise the player could be to play her like a real woman, with feelings and goals. I would play it at first a bit like a romantic comedy, with trivials events to play the dynamics beetween the two characters.

The bride likes the character, and they're basically a good match. The romantic comedy part we're already doing  -- it was coming up with genre-specific ideas (beyond the obvious I mentioned) that I was having trouble with. But I have a bunch of good ideas from this thread now, thanks!