The Death of Arthur •

The Death of Arthur

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This is a Game About Knights

Armor is heavy, yet it is a proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

A knight of the table round should be invincible
Succeed where a less fantastic man would fail
Climb a wall, no one else can climb
Cleave a dragon in record time
Swim a moat in a coat of heavy iron mail Alan Jay Lerner, Camelot

People are easily dazzled by Round Tables and feats of arms. You read of Lancelot in some noble achievement, and, when he comes home to his mistress, you feel resentment at her because she cuts across the achievement, or spoils it. Yet Guenever could not search for the Grail. She could not vanish into the English forest for a year’s adventure with the spear. It was her part to sit at home, though passionate, though real and hungry in her fierce and tender heart. T.H. White, The Ill-Made Knight

And still the child was laughing! He was reaching out for the shining blades because he could see his reflection in them: he pointed it out to his mother. Whenever the swords came within reach he’d jump and try to grab them, heedless of how sharp they were, as he saw himself mirrored in the shining steel First Continuation of Perceval

“All of that is true,” responded Don Quixote, “but we cannot all be friars, and God brings His children to heaven by many paths: chivalry is a religion, and there are sainted knights in Glory."

"Yes,” responded Sancho, “but I’ve heard that there are more friars in heaven than knights errant."

"That is true,” responded Don Quixote, “because the number of religious is greater than the number of knights."

"There are many who are errant,” said Sancho.

”Many,” responded Don Quixote, “but few who deserve to be called knights.” Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

A lot of roleplaying games are medieval fantasy and have knights among other options. Even games focused on a more historical setting1 tend to have a broad set of different character backgrounds.

King Arthur Pendragon went a step further to where you can only2 play as a knight. There are two points to making such a narrow focus. First, you can pick options, design systems, and frame adventures that fit exactly to that focus - practically3 and thematically. Secondly, it makes the game focus on what makes each knight different instead of hoping that characters will take different niches by being different classes4.

Later versions and supplements would introduce ways to play ladies, squires, even some magic users - but these were rare options and with limited broad support.

This is a Game About the Gentry

I do want to keep the slightly wider scope - and bake that in from the start. This is a game about knights and ladies5 and some clergy. Because we’re emulating Pendragon and its adventures, sometimes that will prefer knights6 - but that’s part of why characters have families, for substitutes. I want it to be a basic assumption that aside from adventures where it’s really heavily preferred, there’s a broader assumption that people with other tools in their social arsenals might be involved7.

All of these characters are gentry, though. That is, they’re the kin of the minor landholding military elite. The ladies will have fathers and brothers and sons who are knights. The clergy are the second/third sons, the nepo-babies of the clerical world, with families that still give them connections (and expectations) - not just any old priest, monk or nun.

This is a game about people who are grossly wealthy, the literal 1%, but who still aren’t the big movers and shakers8. People who are part of the system - who literally rule - but who are still cogs in it, who can often be given assignments and duties by it, and who have to be in the dirt and muck now and then.

And that system is violence. Even if it’s for good causes or defense, whether it’s for their liege or even idealistically for their vassals, the purpose of knights is to fight for someone else.

…and maybe Druids?

I have three types of characters currently, and it’s an elegant division. Knights, Ladies and Clergy - which are the Christian clergy.

There’s an obvious question - why not other religions? I’m not going with a very restrictive religious environment9, so there would be priests from other religions.

For the most part, though, these are just knights (or ladies). The Christian clerical hierarchy has a somewhat unique10 distinction of having a place for gentry-class clergy who don’t have their religious roles alongside or because of their other ways of wielding power.

Druids, of which we know little11, are also an interesting form of clerical power that’s popular to tie to the stories. I’m doing that at least a little - my Merlin is at least druid-adjacent like Pendragon’s.

I’ve toyed with them as a separate class before12. I don’t want them to feel just like cheap wizards, though - like someone with all the thematic elements of magical mysterious figures common in these games, but none of the actual powers - and I’ve not got a currently compelling idea of what their focus is, narratively in adventures or mechanically.

Also, they’re Brythonic Salisburgians(?)

Not only are all these characters gentry, but they’re gentry from one era and one place - Sub-Roman Britain. Even more so, they may all hail from about the same regional neighborhood13.

I do want to still keep options for characters with wide ranging ethnic and cultural backgrounds - Arthurian myth is full of curiosity and interest in the wider world - but I think the game should be prepared if everyone comes from the same village or river valley - maybe even almost the same family14. Also, even the most far flung family is still human - not that much different from the rest. Not an orc or an alien or Superman15.

So we’ll want a game where you might be recognized as being from the opposite side of the valley by your accent, and kin and kind can sometimes be very micro-focused - but still with some further flung characters there too.

A Thousand Flowers

But the key point is that none of these superficial differences can give characters the spark that makes them feel unique and important in the group.

That has to come from what kind of a knight (or lady, etc.) they are.

  • What are their reputations?
  • What are their character strengths and flaws?
  • What are their approaches to problems, and how does that give them unique roles to play?
  • How do their family’s particular history and struggles distinguish them?

Footnotes

  1. e.g. Cthulhu Dark Ages, Chivalry and Sorcery, GURPS Middle Ages, or even the very similar setting Mythic Britain ↩

  2. Well… not exactly but we’ll get to that. ↩

  3. No need to figure out what excuse a commoner might have to be around a noble situation, for instance. ↩

  4. Compare something like D&D where a party is mostly assumed to all be different races and classes. That can have single-race parties or (even harder) single-class parties, but these often require a lot of work to make sure they’re not all in the same niche, because each choice is a little one-dimensional. ↩

  5. And, just to be clear, that’s ladies as a social class - distinct from women knights. ↩

  6. Because an adventure was written just for fighters. Also in a more general form, because the genre has long focused on those stories. ↩

  7. It can be tricky - in A Wind Age, A Wolf Age my players picked solely women characters with not a single thegn, and figuring out how to work that out wasn’t trivial - but it also opens up so much interesting play. ↩

  8. That’s the nobility. There’s upwards mobility, but like Pendragon my stance is that characters who do reach these higher roles fade from being playable. Not all at once, but their stories are no longer the same as their gentry cousins. ↩

  9. Partially from some of the syncretism and/or diverse societies of the time and place (this varies on the exact time period and area we’re looking at), partially from how more modern takes especially have often turned to this kind of variety. Merlin’s not clearly non-Christian in any early takes, for instance, but he’s often an archetypical Druid in post-medieval writings. ↩

  10. Rabbinical Judaism maybe could do this (but we’re predating that particular evolution of the clerical roles)? Surely others as well - but largely not common in the area or timeframe. ↩

  11. Which often means we backport a bit of Christian practices back into them. And the rest can be a bit of an empty canvas for wherever the story and setting wants them. ↩

  12. Though to be fair I also toyed with Manichaean clergy. Partially I have reasons… but also I’ve spent plenty of time pigeonholed in random unimportant things for the overall project. ↩

  13. Pendragon has always had other options - sometimes with a lot of them - and with some options, like Saxons, which could be very culturally different. But even these blend together after a generation or two. ↩

  14. A Wind Age, A Wolf Age even had both players as cousins, so literally the same family. I wouldn’t push that for a bigger group (though I wouldn’t be opposed if it came up), mostly because after two generations there’s going to be some intermarriages regardless - and actually having separate families that are knit together is maybe more interesting. ↩

  15. There might be one or two very small exceptions to the not a different species constraint, but very rare events. ↩