Companion Chronicles #8: The Knights of the Hounds

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Knights of the Hounds: A Mongrel Order for Pendragon is a supplement for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, twelve page, 54.41 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Knights of the Hounds is set primarily along the borders between Logres and the Saxon

kingdoms and Berroc, Silchester, and Thamesmouth in particular. However, it is potentially of use wherever there is a clash between the Britons and the Saxons.

It opens in the year 508.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Knights of the Hounds is both an organisation that the Player-knights can join if they qualify and if not, an organisation that can serve as an ally or an enemy of the Player-knights, depending on their actions and attitudes.

To join the Knights of the Hounds, a Player-knight requires a high Valorous Trait, a reasonable Honour Trait, and low or no values in either the Hate (Saxons) or Hate (Cymri) Passions.

What does the Quest require?

The Knights of the Hounds requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Knights of the Hounds presents an organisation or informal order of knights dedicated to showing that Saxon and Cymric knights can work together for the betterment of all and be one people rather than divided. Members of Knights of the Hounds bear dogs or hounds on their shields and keep their identities secret. They face antipathy, even hatred, from the Saxons who regard its Saxon members as betraying their ambitions to conquer the whole of Britain and from the Britons who regard its Cymric members as betraying the memory of those killed in the Night of Long Knives and in subsequent Saxon atrocities. Their detractors have nicknamed the members of the order, ‘Mongrels’.

The supplement presents its origins as a reaction to the poor treatment of prisoners taken by some Saxons and suggests how its members might react to future events in the Pendragon timeline. Three NPCs are fully detailed who the Player-characters may encounter as is the leaders of the order and their manor, known colloquially as the ‘Kennel-Hall’, which is secretly the base of their operations. Also included is a Battle Card for Knights of the Hounds, which can be used as an ally or enemy, depending upon the situation.

The Knights of the Hounds will feature in releases such as The Serpent of Mildenhall and Spares and Heirs.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

The Knights of the Hounds is nice little supplement that presents the basics needed by the Game Master to further explore the conflict and relationship between the Saxons and the Cymri throughout the reign of King Arthur and do so in multiple ways.