The Anarchy: Tribute, Raiding, and Saxons

[JonL]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

That is going to be pretty difficult for vassal knights. They don't have the connections, status, or wealthy to do so. What baron is going to ally with a lowly knight who has no army to speak of? Now, PKs who are officers has some pull with the Countess and Estate Holders might be able to accomplish something, but the opportunities to actually accomplish anything of a signficant scale are limited. Maybe if a PK manages to marry the Countess. 

If your players are drawn to sort of play, the only way they're still going to be low tier vassal knights by the end of Uther's wars, is if you're deliberately holding them back, particularly if they distinguish themselves in the big battles against Gorlois. If they have maintained Uther's favor (a non trivial task) and pulled off major heroics in battle, it would be strange for Uther to not cut them in on the redistrubution of fallen enemies' holdings among his favored loyalists -  SOP for a monarch after a civil war. Even those who remain in Roderick's inner circle will likely be officers of some sort if they've been turning the tide of battles by taking the enemy camp and similar - again, assuming that the players are interested in the lord side of the game.

That's obviously not the only way to play, but it's by no means beyond consideration.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

There are just as many opportunities in other Periods for PKs to be BDW's, in fact,  probably more. Most PKs simply don't have the means to become warlords during this era, and the major theme of the era is that things are going bad for the British, not go forth and conquer. I've seen some posts on various forums where some people have had thier character take over the County or some such, but most of that seems to happen with GM who just let the players succeed at whatever they want. 

I strongly disagree with your assessment of the other periods in this respect. Once Arthur triumphs, you're back to needing special permission to build castles etc., intra-Briton conflicts are vastly reduced, and major warfare becomes the exception rather than the rule. Arthur brings stability and prosperity, at least for a time. During the civil wars and Anarchy, it's "Chaos is a ladder."

WRT the latter bit, it comes off as a bit judgmental. Who is to say what the PKs should or should not earn through good play? Why presume that a PK with his eyes on lordship who is a lion on the battlefield and a fox at court can only achieve that (after many years of effort, maneuvering, and overcoming various challenges) if the GM is a pushover? 

 

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Now I'm not saying that the PKs can't try to fight the Saoxons, or move up in the social ladder, but I am saying that your view that the PKs should just go out and kick the Saxons butt is very risky and not all that easy to pull off. If it were as easy to fight back and you seem to think then the Countess would have told the Saxons where to stick their deamnds for tribute. Ulfius is probably the most powerful British warlord in the South and he doesn't ally with Aelle for nothing. 

The situation is that the Brits don't have much of a chance to defeat the Saxons and drive them out at the start of the Anarchy Period. If doing so was as easy as you made out, then the various Barons would have done it.

That it is a difficult, dangerous, uphill battle against dire odds is kind of the point of fighting it. Adventure RPGs aren't about playing it safe. Playing it safe is for NPCs. It's the PKs job to go out and do the hard things, or again - die trying. That's what makes them heroic.

Edited May 24, 2019 by JonL

[Atgxtg]

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

If your players are drawn to sort of play, the only way they're still going to be low tier vassal knights by the end of Uther's wars, is if you're deliberately holding them back, particularly if they distinguish themselves in the big battles against Gorlois.

It's not a question of stle of pay or a GM holding them back but simple the fact that unless things go very very well for them, they are just not high enough to have that sort of pull.

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

If they have maintained Uther's favor (a non trivial task) and pulled off major heroics in battle, it would be strange for Uther to not cut them in on the redistrubution of fallen enemies' holdings among his favored loyalists -  SOP for a monarch after a civil war. Even those who remain in Roderick's inner circle will likely be officers of some sort if they've been turning the tide of battles by taking the enemy camp and similar - again, assuming that the players are interested in the lord side of the game.

Sure, but that assumes that they PKs manage to get Uther's favor or establish themselves into Roderick inner circle and still survive St. Albans. Basically the higher up the are the more likely they are to get poisoned. 

Gaining Uther favor or becoming an officer isn't automatic. OKs have to do things to earn it, and be lucky. It's doubtful that the PKs will have more than a manor or two for holdings during the Anarchy. Sure if a PK does something fantastic for Uther they might rise up in the ranks a bit, but the odds of becoming powerful enough to have any real impact on things (at least a Banneret) is quite the longshot. 

 

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

That's obviously not the only way to play, but it's by no means beyond consideration.

No, but it depends on a lot of things to fall the right way for the PKs. Basically it's like someone planning for thier future based on the assumption that first, they will win the lottery. 

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

I strongly disagree with your assessment of the other periods in this respect. Once Arthur triumphs, you're back to needing special permission to build castles etc., intra-Briton conflicts are vastly reduced, and major warfare becomes the exception rather than the rule. Arthur brings stability and prosperity, at least for a time. During the civil wars and Anarchy, it's "Chaos is a ladder."

Well we disagree then. For starters Arthur goes off conquering everywhere (the Conquest Period) which gives many more opportunities for knights to earn favor and gain new holdings.  Yes there is a better chance to take someplace by force during the Anarchy, but so what? The odds of keeping it afterwards are slim. One of the first things Arthur does as High King is to restore the lands to all the nobles who got hosed during the Anarchy. So that PK who conquered 20 mansors and built three castles probably won't keep them. 

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

WRT the latter bit, it comes off as a bit judgmental. Who is to say what the PKs should or should not earn through good play? Why presume that a PK with his eyes on lordship who is a lion on the battlefield and a fox at court can only achieve that (after many years of effort, maneuvering, and overcoming various challenges) if the GM is a pushover? 

Well for startrs the higher ranking nobles. I have no problems with the PKs earning  things through good play, or even through dumb luck. I'm just stating that its not automatic. This isn't old D&D where characters will eventually get whatever they want if they just live long enough to reach a high enough level.

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

That it is a difficult, dangerous, uphill battle against dire odds is kind of the point of fighting it. Adventure RPGs aren't about playing it safe.

That is partially true. Acting reckless, stupid and biting off more than one can chew will get Player characters killed in most adventure RPGs too. Especially one like Pendragon. 

15 minutes ago, JonL said:

Playing it safe is for NPCs. It's the PKs job to go out and do the hard things, or again - die trying. That's what makes them heroic.

Yes, but it also makes them dead.

the PKs should temper those risks with good judgment, or all they will accomplish will be the die trying part. A newly knighted age 21 starting character could heroically fight a Dragon by himself, and will get tons of glory if he wins, but his chances of doing so are rather slim. A player who does stuff like that repeatedly is just going to go through a lot of characters. At least if the "uphill battle against dire odds" is really an uphill battle against dire odds, and not an easy battle with a good PR from the GM. 

 The ones who do well and rise in rank and status learn how to pick their battles and when to take risks, and when not to. 

[JonL]

23 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Gaining Uther favor or becoming an officer isn't automatic. OKs have to do things to earn it, and be lucky. It's doubtful that the PKs will have more than a manor or two for holdings during the Anarchy. Sure if a PK does something fantastic for Uther they might rise up in the ranks a bit, but the odds of becoming powerful enough to have any real impact on things (at least a Banneret) is quite the longshot. 

Yeah, they'd have to do something amazing like go on a perilous quest to the Otherworld and bring Uther back a magic sword that let's him win all his battles for something like that to happen, at a minimum.

Edited May 24, 2019 by JonL

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, JonL said:

Yeah, they'd have to do something amazing like go on a perilous quest to the Otherworld and bring Uther back a magic sword that let's him win all his battles for something like that to happen, at a minimum.

More than that. First off, Merlin is the one who enlists the aid of the PKs, as well as the one who gives Uther the Sword, not the PKs. Secondly the same Merlin also "abducts" baby Arthur and leave the PKs holding the bag, and they end up on trial for treason. None of that puts the Pks into Uther's favor. 

Merlin's praise does help the PKs somewhat with the Count, but then Merlin's rep take a big hit after he is declared a traitor. 

[Tizun Thane]

On 5/24/2019 at 3:27 PM, JonL said:

If this sort of stuff is supposed to be part of the game (especially during the Anarchy), why should the GM smack you down with super-coordinated roving bands or retaliations with 10 times your force? If chevauchée is doing-it-wrong, why are we playing a game about Knights? 

You misunderstood me. Yes, why not. But if you raid a powerful foe, you should be aware that he can strike back. It's not about smacking down the PK. It's about choices and consequences.

During the Anarchy, the Saxons are menacing. The GM should never forget that. If the PK are thinking "it was easy. Saxons are weak.", there is a problem.

On 5/24/2019 at 8:20 PM, Morien said:

at, by the way, is why I am feeling a bit lukewarm about Nanteleod in GPC. He kinda makes it seem that even if Arthur wouldn't exist, one British king would eventually manage to unite the island, and that with just a little bit of luck, Nanteleod would have been that King.

Nanteleod is supposed to be the last hope. And then he dies...

 

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

During the Anarchy, the Saxons are menacing. The GM should never forget that. If the PK are thinking "it was easy. Saxons are weak.", there is a problem.

Pretty much, although the occasional weak encounter hear or there can help too. It shows that the Saxons are not invincible,  but just that it is difficult to do defeat them at present.

Quote

Nanteleod is supposed to be the last hope. And then he dies...

making the situation seem much worse, exactly.

Part of the purpose of the Anarchy Period is to make the situation look bleak in order to make Arthur's rise and victories all that greater. The idea being that Arthur is special and can do what others either wouldn't, couldn't, or in the case of Nanteleod, died before they could, accomplish. The game needs those dark times to make the golden age of Arthur stand out more. 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Morien]

Upon further reflection, I admit that Nanteleod can act as a catalyst. He did bring Logres together, albeit briefly, and the days of 505 - 507 were Logres kicking ass and taking names (no bubblegum, since it hadn't been invented yet). So after the surviving lords get their act together again in 509, it makes sense that they would decide that being united is much better than Anarchy, so let's call a tournament and whoever wins will be the next King of Logres. Granted, you can get the same effect even later, but since Nanteleod is there...

I am just not fully convinced that the highs of 505-7 make 508 -9 sting worse than a constant Saxon threat throughout 500s would have. But then again, the one time we played through Anarchy, the PKs ended up allying with Cornwall and later with Wessex against Nanteleod, so it was kinda flipped on them. 505-7 sucked, but 508-9 was happy days again raiding Levcomagus and forcing Marlborough swear allegiance to Salisbury in exchange for immunity from Wessex...

Edited May 28, 2019 by Morien

[Hzark10]

And, in a way, there is beauty in the fact that no two campaigns need to be EXACTLY the same during this time period.  Countess Ellen could end up marrying someone, possibly even Cedric, or a PK.  Or, play one party against another so R. inherits it all once he becomes of age, or the PKs could hightail it somewhere else and set up shop.  

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Hzark10 said:

And, in a way, there is beauty in the fact that no two campaigns need to be EXACTLY the same during this time period. 

Beauty? I'd say say a necessity. Unlike virtually every other RPG, Pendragon follows the same timeline and course of events in every campaign. If a GM didn't vary things the campaing would get boring a predicable, much like most computer RPGs.

3 hours ago, Hzark10 said:

Countess Ellen could end up marrying someone, possibly even Cedric, or a PK.  Or, play one party against another so R. inherits it all once he becomes of age, or the PKs could hightail it somewhere else and set up shop.  

Yup. Lots of options for the GM to choose from, although the campaing history and players actions will (and should) play a big part in determining that direction. 

[SaxBasilisk]

On 5/22/2019 at 4:54 PM, Willow said:

4)  The East Saxons are all the way over in Caerwent.  To raid Salisbury, they'd have to either march through Silchester (seems unlikely), or sail around and go through Wessex (who nominally owe Salisbury protection.)  Just how are they getting there?

Let's go for a little thread necromancy here.

I'm having trouble with this myself in my prep for Anarchy. It seems that the most likely that trouble comes from Wessex, and possibly from Sussex, assuming that Salisbury's relationship with Silchester has deteriorated enough that Ulfius just lets his ally through.

Atgxtg points out that Wessex could let other kings' warriors through to raid - but this would probably vary based upon how Cerdic is getting along with his fellow Saxons. Some of the material I'm looking at is contradictory (big surprise), but it appears that he doesn't get along with Port until 507, and I'm not certain about the others. Cerdic might not be inclined to let warriors of other tribes wander across his land for raids, especially if it's more profitable to just ask Salisbury for more protection money.

With that in mind, it really seems to me that it's less important what the nebulous "Grudge score" is like for many of these kingdoms, and more how Salisbury is faring with both Wessex and Silchester. I think you could have the same overall effects in terms of finances, but it changes how players approach the situation.

Thoughts?

 

 

[Voord 99]

Here are some ways that I can think of to complicate that basic framework for your players, if you wanted.

1)  I think it’s more than just the court of Salisbury’s relations with Silchester, because that would imply that Duke Ulfius always has a choice.  It’s also a matter of Silchester’s position, and all the things that you say about how Saxon armies need to pass through Silchester also mean that Duke Ulfius is horribly exposed himself.   Ulfius may say that Aelle is his ally, and he’s not Aelle’s vassal, but the facts of the matter are that he’s paying tribute to Aelle and not the other way around.  

It would make a lot of sense for Aelle to extract an oath from Ulfius to allow his army to pass through Ulfius’ lands.  One way to play this would be to have Ulfius turn up and say essentially what he does in the GPC: it’s tribute, but it’s not vassalage, you should ally with Aelle too, the Saxons don’t get along.  Putting the best face on it.  The next year, envoys from Aelle arrive and, if anyone laughs at them and points out that they would have to march through Silchester, the Saxons smile and say that Ulfius has sworn to allow them to march anywhere they like.

Alternatively, once London falls in 503, Ulfius is in a very unpleasant position.  I might encourage the players to think that they can count on him until then, and then have it turn out that he practically can’t do anything from that point on.  Worth remembering that Ulfius’ ability to do anything at all is limited by his vassals’ willingness to do in practice what they are supposed to do, and in the Anarchy that may mean that it is very limited indeed.  Especially as he is, according to the Book of Uther, someone who has recently risen to this position of prominence because of his personal friendship with the dead king.  It’s not like Salisbury, where you have landed families with long histories of loyalty to Roderick’s house.  Players might develop very cordial and friendly relations with the duke’s court, and then find out that does them no good at all when Ulfius’ vassals tell him that they are not going to get raided on top of the tribute that they are paying, all to help those arrogant bastards in Salisbury.

2) It depends on exactly how you want to play Cerdic’s relations with Aelle, but if they are mostly hostile to one another, only getting along when Nanteleod poses a real threat, there is room to make the choice between good relations with Wessex and good relations with Silchester mutually exclusive.  From Cerdic’s perspective, it is perhaps most important to undermine Aelle, and that might matter more to him than Salisbury per se.  So a condition for good relations with Salisbury is that Salisbury raids Silchester or otherwise damages Aelle’s ally — especially as Cerdic not unreasonably  might envisage that Aelle’s relationship with Ulfius will one day become vassalage if things go on as they are currently going.  After all, one of Cerdic’s biggest strengths is that he has a reasonable claim to the throne of Logres — preventing situations in which Britons develop positions of dependency on Saxon kings who aren’t called “Cerdic” is politically desirable for him.

3) Early in the Anarchy, Somerset/Summerland should arguably be a bigger deal in the GPC than it is, at least if you’re following the history of the preceding years in the Book of Uther.  Eventually, the king of Somerset has got Idres to worry about, but before that, he has a recent history of Roderick taking lands away from him and Somerset raiding Roderick in response.  Presumably, the very first thing that happens in the Anarchy is that Cadwy takes those lands back and then maybe he pursues his own claims on other lands in revenge.  So fine, you’ve got Saxons to worry about on the one hand - but from the other direction you have Somerset actively trying to conquer.  This is, admittedly, complicated by the fact that Somerset is supposed to be this mysterious magical kingdom, but the BoU/GPC does not generally exempt the place from the power politics stuff.

3) One thing that I personally would stress is that the PKs’ most serious enemies might well be in Salisbury itself.  

The GPC presents this as a situation in which, once Lycus swears loyalty, that more-or-less ends dispute and from then on all of Robert’s vassals are united behind whatever the PKs advise Ellen to do.  It really should “realistically” be much messier than that.  (Obviously doesn’t have to be - the GPC itself specifies that you don’t have to run the Anarchy as about the high politics at all, and can just have the knights adventure in the Forest Sauvage if you like.). The PKs have recently experienced the highly variable nature of even a strong lord’s authority in the Gorlois-Uther story, so they should be prepared for the possibility that the same sort of thing not only can but probably will replicate itself at a lower level given the extreme weakness of Ellen’s authority.  Pretty much any hard decision they make will have someone somewhere disagreeing with it, and finding various open or covert ways to withhold co-operation.

Some particular stresses:

a) Unlicensed castles.  These were big in the historical Anarchy of the 12th century.  One option might be as follows.  A rich landed knight whose lands are mostly in the south and exposed to Wessex refuses to contribute to the walling of Sarum at the beginning of the period, and it turns out that they were hanging onto their treasure to build an unlicensed castle instead.  They quite reasonably point out that they have the most need for it, and if and when there is a king they will seek a license for it, and if they fail to achieve that, they will dismantle it.  But it is also the case that, if this knight resist the dictates of Ellen and her court, the PKs have no easy way to bring them to heel without a lengthy and not terribly practical siege.  Even if this knight is quite sincere, if the PKs let them get away with it, that sends a signal to other and disloyal knights that they too could do this.

b) Even if you’re going with the old centralized territorial holdings, you could give Roderick a couple of outliers with their own vassals.  The reason is that, as Mr. Stafford noted on his website, those fall at the beginning of the Anarchy.  That means that the Anarchy opens with Robert, i.e. Ellen, i.e. the PKs, failing to do something very important.  This is exactly the sort of thing that other vassals might look at and seize upon as sufficient grounds for them to not live up to their obligations — some sincerely, but others using it cynically as an acceptable excuse.  There is a real risk of a bandwagon effect in which Ellen’s authority unravels completely as a result.  

So what objectively stupid but politically necessary thing are the PKs going to do to shore up her authority?  Pick a fight with Wessex, just to show that Ellen will fight to defend vassals closer to Sarum?  Choose someone at random and make an example of them?

One can make this worse by bringing in the lands that Ellen brought into the marriage.  She is very possibly attached to them, not through sentiment, but because those are where the knights are who are most loyal to her.  She may sensibly want to try to hang onto them despite difficulties, or possibly even want to abandon Salisbury for them entirely — creating a nasty contrast with what happened to Roderick’s outlier vassals.

c) Actual medieval England was notable for the tendency of knights to have multiple lords, and my understanding is that in practice knights with multiple lords did not always neatly prioritize one loyalty in cases of conflict in quite the manner than Pendragon suggests, and were capable of allowing self-interest to dictate which loyalty they chose to regard as most important.  The larger landowners very possibly hold some of their manors from lords other than Robert, and one can inject, for instance, a landed knight whom the PKs have reason to suspect is actually working to advance Ulfius’ (or whoever’s) interests over Ellen’s, even if in theory Ellen is their liege.

c) There have to be at least a couple of knights in Salisbury whose forebears wanted to support Vortigern and in their heart of hearts never really accepted Ambrosius’ legitimacy — knights with low Hate Saxons scores that are outweighed by their attachment to Vortigern’s house.    These might make good enemy figures for the PKs.  What if there is a suspicion that a knight who has built an unlicensed castle in fact intends to use it to help Cerdic invade?  Another possibility is that among Cerdic’s British knights are knights from Salisbury who fought for Vortigern, were stripped of their lands, and now want their lands back.  They still have relatives in the county, some of them with high Love Family Passions, who have never really accepted the knight from Brittany or wherever who ended up with the land as its legitimate lord.  They might not care much for Cerdic, but they do want Sir Chooses Sides Badly back as lord of Idmiston or wherever.

d) Finally, and obviously, there have to be knights who just hate the PKs for some reason and are working against them.  It could be sheer jealousy at how the PKs become Ellen’s favored advisers.  Someone might connive to make the PKs’ plans go disastrously wrong in order to usurp their role at court.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Voord 99

[SaxBasilisk]

Thank you for the very thorough response!

It sounds as if I'm on the right track regarding the importance of the Saxons. I can add a couple thoughts to this, based on some material hidden in the Book of the Warlord and Lordly Domains.

We have a couple of things going on with Ulfius. First, according to the Book of the Warlord, early on he makes a land grab for the territories in northeast Salisbury that aren't directly part of the Countess' holdings. Second, Lordly Domains establishes that the Countess of Rydychan is Ulfius' sister-in-law, and frames the Rydychan matter as something on which Ulfius requests their help. This gives some additional ways to work Ulfius into the situation - maybe he foregoes the land grab if Salisbury puts its resources into helping out his family.

As for Somerset - in BotW, practically every hundred Salisbury took from them ends up with some sort of supernatural invasion during Anarchy. Most notably is Wereside, the lord of which has the right to smelt the bog iron on Salisbury Plain. A renegade knight builds a castle there, which is later attacked by goblins. That gives two or three different points at which the players could get involved, depending upon the timing.

With regard to the unauthorized border fortress, we could have another couple of complicating factors. The location of the PK vassal manors could be crucial - for example, Broughton ends up right on the border with Wessex. Also, in BotW, the major fortress that's there, DuPlain, ends up captured by Wessex, so having a second one in the area might not be horrible.

It appears my players will have plenty of tough choices to make. Thanks again!