Longer adventure for the Uther Period -- suggestions?

[Machete_Matt]

Running a game using GPC starting the the Uther Period. Two years in, we are now in 487 AD. 

I am looking for a longer adventure that would fit the ambiance of the Uther Period. Something meaty with a plot, instead of just the brief activities of the early years of the GPC. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have a bunch of the published books, and everything I have looked at seems to be predicated on King Arthur, or Romance, or tournaments, or the search for the Holy Grail. Those are not relevant yet in this era.

Does not have to be linked to Uther at all. Also, does not have to even be for Pendragon originally, I am happy to convert and I do not worry about NPC/monster stats too much.

 

Thank you for any ideas you may have!

[Morien]

Previous editions were mostly set in 510-531, which is why there is so little for Uther, which became the new start time only with 5th edition.

White Horse is easy to transport to Uther. Indeed, I like to rerun it every 21 years or so. 

Horned Boar is another one that would be easy enough to run, with some minimal tweaking of armor, horses and some background info.

Dragon's Hoard (Dragons of Britain #4) can be tweaked to Uther.

Nothing prevents you from running the Whispering Path from GPC early.

Those would be four that easily came to mind.

Oh, The Deceitful Fae is easy to run in Summerland adjacent counties even im Uther Period.

Red Blade needs very minimal tweaking to work in Uther Period, too.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Morien

[Machete_Matt]

Thank you very much Morien for the advice, I greatly appreciate it, even if it took me some time to get back to the forum! 

 

White Horse is from 3e/4e, so unfortunately I think I do not have access to it. But I found Horned Boar in Spectre King and Deceitful Faerie in Magic & Miracles, plus Dragons of Britain issues #1-4 were free on DriveThruRPG, so I am well set now! And I had Red Blade all along, of course, just had not read it because it starts out by warning it is best for the Romance or Tournament periods. Also had not read ahead to the Whispering Path in GPC before, but now I know it as well. It is a bit short for my needs, though.

 

It is great to get tips from someone with encyclopedic knowledge of all things Pendragon, I have read many of your other posts as well -- including two from 2019 that I did not see at first, but where you answered similar questions to mine here. 

 

Thanks again!

 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Machete_Matt said:

Thank you very much Morien for the advice, I greatly appreciate it, even if it took me some time to get back to the forum! 

Happy to help! 🙂

2 hours ago, Machete_Matt said:

White Horse is from 3e/4e, so unfortunately I think I do not have access to it. But I found Horned Boar in Spectre King and Deceitful Faerie in Magic & Miracles, plus Dragons of Britain issues #1-4 were free on DriveThruRPG, so I am well set now! And I had Red Blade all along, of course, just had not read it because it starts out by warning it is best for the Romance or Tournament periods. Also had not read ahead to the Whispering Path in GPC before, but now I know it as well. It is a bit short for my needs, though.

It is pretty easy to expand the Whispering Path a bit. I disliked the grave-robbing aspect of it, and instead made it into the reason for the haunting: the previous lord of Grantham had, at his chaplain's urging, robbed the graves of their grave goods. As the result, the ghosts and their dogs had come for him, slaughtering everyone in the manor house, which was then left alone with the treasure inside it. The dogs continued haunting the village, killing people who were caught outside after dark, and all that sort of stuff. It added a nice 'mystery' aspect to it, and kept the ~£100 worth of treasure away from the PKs, too, unless they wished to take a chance with the ghosts.

I agree the Red Blade is best once Chivalry is a thing, but it is not strictly speaking needed, IMHO. The Red Blade has been around since before the Uther Period, after all. So the setup works well enough even earlier.

2 hours ago, Machete_Matt said:

It is great to get tips from someone with encyclopedic knowledge of all things Pendragon, I have read many of your other posts as well -- including two from 2019 that I did not see at first, but where you answered similar questions to mine here.

Nice to see someone availing themselves to the archives! 🙂

Edited March 17 by Morien

[O Dinas Powys]

Since you don’t mind converting from other systems, I’ve had a couple of hits using Beowulf: Age of Heroes scenarios from Handiwork Games (Handiwork Games, Beowulf).  As the name suggests, it’s more a monster-hunting in the style of Beowulf system, which assumes a more Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal than the Arthurian one, but this does provide a nice contrast to the later high-Arthurian KAP scenarios.

They’re designed for a 5E D&D derived system, and for one player and one GM, but I’ve used them with a group of player knights with no problem.

There’s an excellent, free, sample scenario with all you need to play available here: The Hermit's Sanctuary

If it piques your interest drop a reply and I can go into specifics of how I’ve adapted the material.

[Puckohue]

On 6/17/2024 at 5:34 PM, O Dinas Powys said:

 specifics of how I’ve adapted the material.

I'd love to hear more about that.

[O Dinas Powys]

4 hours ago, Puckohue said:

I'd love to hear more about that.

Cool, I'll gather my thoughts and reply a bit later 👍

[Ian Absentia]

On 6/17/2024 at 8:34 AM, O Dinas Powys said:

Since you don’t mind converting from other systems, I’ve had a couple of hits using Beowulf: Age of Heroes scenarios from Handiwork Games...

Speaking of which -- and this is a bit of a long shot -- there's the 3rd Ed Land of Giants, which is essentially Beowulf via Pendragon.  There are a lot of neat adventure seeds associated with the map of Thule, many of which can be adapted to the British Isles.  "The Adventure of Hrothgar's Hall" is full-on Grendel and his mother, so maybe not so useful, but "The Barrow Dragon" might be more flexible to interpretation.  The GM will need to steer the tone away from Scandinavian and toward the Saxon, but they're not incompatible.

!i!

[O Dinas Powys]

11 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Speaking of which -- and this is a bit of a long shot -- there's the 3rd Ed Land of Giants, which is essentially Beowulf via Pendragon.  There are a lot of neat adventure seeds associated with the map of Thule, many of which can be adapted to the British Isles.  "The Adventure of Hrothgar's Hall" is full-on Grendel and his mother, so maybe not so useful, but "The Barrow Dragon" might be more flexible to interpretation.  The GM will need to steer the tone away from Scandinavian and toward the Saxon, but they're not incompatible.

!i!

Good book 👍

It does, however, have a massive difference in feel and focus compared to Beowulf: Age of Heroes (different base system; different design goals) 🙂

[O Dinas Powys]

Okay, cool, here goes!  (This will be in a few, topic-discrete, posts as I think of more!)

The first thing is that, due to time constraints for complex conversions, I was up-front about the paradigm shift from “Arthurian Knight” (even in Uther’s time) to “Dark Age Hero”: it’s monster hunting with a mystery to solve.  Populations are assumed to be more sparsely distributed, no cities and no central culture, etc.  Stuff will just be different, so I pointed out that it may happen and didn’t sweat it.

One major difference is that the knights will have to interact with lowly commoners on a more even footing.  Whilst many of the NPCs will be of nobles or clergy, sometimes the vital detail is held by a humble pot-boy or goose-girl.

[O Dinas Powys]

For encounters and monsters, I’ve often just directly subbed in a Pendragon equivalent and not worried about it more than that. 

However, with regards to the scenario design, the central conceit of Beowulf:AoH is that there is a Big Bad Monster to overcome at the end of the scenario.  Sometimes a peaceful resolution is possible, but often not, and when it comes to a fight these BBMs are undefeatable until their weaknesses is uncovered and used against them. 

Just something to be aware of, but you can usually just port over the secret directly into your Pendragon game.

[O Dinas Powys]

Beowulf:AoH has a follower mechanic to enable the 1-on-1 play it is designed for.  With a group of knights, this can be ignored (as you probably would if you used the scenarios with a group a of Beowulf:AoH or D&D PCs).  Squire rolls can also sub in for appropriate follower abilities.

 

There’s also a Fate Pool system, making greater use of the 5E D&D Inspiration mechanic and a more game-appropriate alignment system (“God of the Book”; “Old Ways”; one the fence/neutral/uncaring).  This can be ignored for the most part, although a Hero’s alignment can play into interacting with named NPCs (more of which in a later post - NAMED NPCs are a bit more nuanced).  If alignment becomes important, you can sub in the knight's Faith readily enough.

[Morien]

Should this be spun into its own thread, so that you can title it like 'Pendragon Conversion of Beowulf: Age of Heroes adventures'? That way, it would be easier to find.

[O Dinas Powys]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Should this be spun into its own thread, so that you can title it like 'Pendragon Conversion of Beowulf: Age of Heroes adventures'? That way, it would be easier to find.

Good idea 👍

That will leave this thread free of clutter if others want to add suggestions.

[Tizun Thane]

The adventure "The best wine in the word" (or something like that) in Savages Moutain could be easily played during Uther's times, I guess.