Grail Pagan help needed.

[SirUkpyr]

Greetings and Salutations!

I come seeking aid. I have been Pendragon for over 10 years, but this is the first time my players have reached the Grail Quest.

My problem is simple.

I have one RTK who is Spanish and follows the Arian Heresy, and another who is British Christian (but who has been missing multiple games).

The rest of the party consists of a Pict (Heathenism - follows Osprey), a Saxon (Germanic Pagan), and an Irish knight (British Pagan).

 

I've no idea what to do with my non-Christian knights during the Grail Quest.

 

HELP!

My thanks in advance for any ideas that people can provide.

 

Sir Ukpyr

(who really misses Greg right now, as I know he would have some great ideas)

[Morien]

Greg's advice is in GPC, p. 168 - 169.

As for what happened in our first campaign, the PKs went after the Grail/Cauldron in order to stop the Wasteland, rather than from any religious motive per se. They gave up when it got too difficult, and hence were back in Salisbury for events that happened there.

Question is: Is the Grail Quest for you(r players)?

[Tizun Thane]

I wonder a lot about that issue. My answer was:

play it like a big Christian Quest. They will fail, of course. They will be frustrated, of Course. Maybe they will convert. Maybe they will stick to their old faith. But the years of Old Gods are over. 

The Quest is simply not for them.

 

[Hzark10]

You could always divide the quest into two different ones. The Grail for Christians and the Cauldron for Pagans. However, if the PKs do not complete both, then the ultimate quest follows what is the default story where the Grail quest fails. So, essentially the same, but the players may have a story to tell and is different than them going on a quest that is not meant for them. As others have said, the could convert to Christianity and try as well. 

[Darius West]

11 hours ago, SirUkpyr said:

Greetings and Salutations!

I come seeking aid. I have been Pendragon for over 10 years, but this is the first time my players have reached the Grail Quest.

HELP!

In answer to your cries Sir Ukpyr, it is very important to realize that most Player Knights will never be able to complete the Grail Quest.  It is almost certainly beyond them to heal the Fisher King.

I would suggest therefore that you explain the symbolism of the mysteries in terms of the religions of each of the players.

For the Christians, the Grail is the Cup of Christ.

For the Pagans it is the Cauldron of Bran.

For the Norse, it is the Mortar of Eir, or perhaps the Sampo of Ilmarinen of Finland.

Others less righteous might even see the Green Gem struck from the brow of Satan by the Archangel Michael that holds the mysteries of magic.

The Grail Quest Wasteland may well have real world analogues, and be a reference to 536 AD The Worst Year to be Alive.  The order of the world was destroyed, and this catastrophe could only be understood in terms of the mythological world view of the time.  The Fisher King was struck in the "leg", which is a Bowdlerized way of saying, his 3rd Leg, rendering him infertile, and his sacred connection to the land was therefore severed, bringing about the wasteland, plague and famine.  One would think it was wise to replace the King, but the King was holy and extremely wise and just and nobody in their right mind would consider that any more than they would murder loving parents.  Instead they sought to restore the King's fertility and connection to the land by healing him.  The king is the keeper of the Grail and need only sip from it to be cured, but he doesn't think about himself and his own needs, and needs to be reminded to do so by a similarly pure soul.  Instead he languishes in his sickbed, while doing his best to save the people from the catastrophes of the Age that is come upon them.  Of course there is also the Satanic Knight who sees the Green Gem, not the Grail, and seeks to claim it from the weakened king by force.  This, the players can deal with...

[Tizun Thane]

On 2/6/2023 at 3:32 PM, Darius West said:

For the Pagans it is the Cauldron of Bran.

The Revelation could be for pagan knights that Paganism will no die, but survive into the Catholicism. The Virgin Mary is "clearly" the "Great Goddess" of the Pagans, both Virgin and Mother. Different names, but the same Universal Truth underneath.

I found this explanation a bit crappy and new Age, but hey, it's in the Books.

[Darius West]

On 2/8/2023 at 8:20 PM, Tizun Thane said:

The Revelation could be for pagan knights that Paganism will no die, but survive into the Catholicism. The Virgin Mary is "clearly" the "Great Goddess" of the Pagans, both Virgin and Mother. Different names, but the same Universal Truth underneath.

I found this explanation a bit crappy and new Age, but hey, it's in the Books.

It's a good thing most Catholics have thick skins on these issues huh?

[ArkSvid]

We haven't reached the Grail quest yet in the all-Pagan game I'm playing but when we've talked about it OOC the general attitude has been "we have to get the Grail because it would be hilarious to rub it in the Christians' faces that it was the Pagans who completed the quest." So if your players are as easily motivated by spite as us that's as good a reason as any to get them involved.

[Morien]

1 hour ago, ArkSvid said:

"we have to get the Grail because it would be hilarious to rub it in the Christians' faces that it was the Pagans who completed the quest."

Good luck completing the Quest if that is your motivation. 🙂

Edited February 11, 2023 by Morien

[ArkSvid]

2 hours ago, Morien said:

Good luck completing the Quest if that is your motivation. 🙂

To be fair our knights completely missing the whole point of the Grail quest would be 100% in character for them

[svensson]

Funny stuff aside, the Grail Quest's entire intent is for knights to embrace the character traits that are hardest for them to reach... Knights by their nature are a proud and willful lot. They risk their lives for Lord, Lady, and Land often and do so by choice. They have an entirely justified pride on very masculine skills... skill at arms, skill at hunting, skill with horses, etc. And the whole point of the Cult of Courtly Love [and for that matter the Cult of the Virgin Mary] is to soften and humanize these meatheads in metal shirts.

The Grail Quest emphasizes the antithesis of these traits: humility over pride, innocence over worldliness, submission over dominance. And while most Christian knights have had some exposure to this [though most usually pay it lip service at most], pagan knights will have a **significantly** harder time embracing the goals of the Grail.

If the Grail in KAP has a 'personality' or some kind of will of it's own [instead of being symbolic object], I'd venture to say that your pagan knights would stand no chance whatsoever of even finding the Grail until they converted. It might be better story-wise for you to use the Grail quest as a guide to develop a pagan quest of similar mythic significance.

[mj6373]

The major items of Arthurian myth are very often artifacts from old Pagan stories that were Christianized outright or combined with known Christian artifacts for a Christian audience. Of particular importance are the Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danann, which have really clear analogies to key objects in the Arthurian mythos.

 

The Stone of Fál, which cries out or roars in the presence of the rightful monarch, became the stone part of the Sword in the Stone symbol. The Lance of Longinus as used in Arthurian myth is a composite with the Lance of Lugh. Excalibur is heavily inspired if not outright based on Nuada's Sword of Light, Claiomh Solais, a sword that shines like the sun and serves as the kingly symbol of the Tuatha De. And finally, the Holy Grail is heavily inspired by the Cauldron/Platter of the Dagda, which provides infinite perfect sustenance which ensures excellent health and supernatural longevity (though not typically the resurrection and healing the Grail would come to be known for).

 

Personally, I decided to lean fully into this interplay by making all of said objects have both Pagan and Christian connections. There's already lots of thematic involvement in Pendragon with Britain's nature as a former Roman colony, so the way I handled it was that Rome had stolen three of the four treasures during their initial occupation (with Excalibur being the exception as it was hidden in the lake), then those objects played pivotal roles in the Crucifixion of Christ and surrounding events (relevantly here the Spear and Grail being used to kill Jesus and catch his blood respectively), before being stolen back to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. (Strictly speaking, the occupation began just slightly *after* the birth of Christianity historically speaking, but this is Pendragon, knights shouldn't even exist for a couple hundred more years, so I'm happy to fudge details.)

 

In fact, I actually went even further de-Catholicizing some elements of the lore, as the way I see it, British Christianity under the Joseph of Arimathea founding myth would both predate and basically ignore everything Paul added that made so much of Catholicism what it is. While a Catholic knight certainly *could* have completed the Grail Quest, it was much more open to pagans and others who were exceptional in spirituality and virtue, and it ended up being a Jewish knight who completed the Quest in my campaign.

[Ali the Helering]

When I was studying Celtic Christianity (1993-6) I remember the lecturer saying that there was good evidence from phraseology in the liturgy and elements of iconography that indicated that Christianity reached Britain from Roman North Africa and was Orthodox rather than Catholic.