Companion Chronicles #4: The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull

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 Adventure of the Arcadian Bull is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition, the first part of ‘The Faerie Trilogy’, which throws the Player-knights into a war between two duchies and sends them on a cattle raid.

It is a full colour, twenty-six page, 12.93 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull is set between the duchies of Clarence and Glevum in Logres after the year 512 and ideally after the events of ‘The Adventure of the Forest of the Silver Deer’ from The Sword Campaign.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull does not have particular requirements in terms of its Player-knights.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull begins with the Player-knights coming upon a single knight who has been set about by group of five knights. Upon going to his rescue, they discover that the knight they have saved is actually saved is the son of the Duke of Clarence. Afterwards, he is grateful and offers them the hospitality of his home. However, whilst his father is also grateful and will gives gifts to each of the Player-knights, the son wants his revenge and begs his father to allow him to respond in kind to the knights that attacked him and conduct a raid on the rival Duchy of Glevum. Much to his annoyance his father forbids this, because the Pendragon—which could be Arthur or another king to hold that position—has forbidden such acts. Desirous of his revenge nonetheless, the son approaches the Player-knights to aid him in an endeavour that will see them conduct a raid, he and his men mount a diversion, the Duchy of Glevum be humiliated, and thus the son avoid violating a command issued by the Pendragon. This will be a cattle raid, specifically of a fabled Arcadian Bull. (It should be noted that neither son nor father are specifically named, though options are given for both depending upon the source material that the Game Master wants to draw from and when she is setting the scenario.)

The adventure focuses not so much on the raid or theft of the cattle, so much as the challenges tat the Player-knights face in getting the Arcadian Bull and the rest of the cattle back to Clarence via the haunted Cotswold Hills. Although they may encounter knights loyal to the Duchy of Glevum, the main threat they face is otherworldly in nature. A chance encounter with ghosts will test any Player-knight of Cymric or Roman heritage, perhaps to the point where they are lost entirely—although this will take some very bad rolls upon the part of a player, but the best encounter is saved until last when a delightfully magical Butterfly Knight challenges them for ownership of the Arcadian Bull. This sets up a trio of contests that opens up the scenario in terms of what the Player-knights can really say or do, giving them more choice than they have had up until this point. In fact, the contest, which will consist of at least a contest of arms and then two out of contests of either lore, faith, singing, riddles, and a race, really does save the scenario from its linearity and lifting up above what is up to that point a rather simple journey. (In fact, even if the Game Master does not necessarily want to run The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull, it is still worth having so that she take the contests and use them in her won campaign.)

The Glory rewards at the end of the scenario favour smaller groups of Player-knights rather than larger ones. The Game Master might want to change them to flat values rather than having the total Glory divided amongst them.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

Up until the point when the Butterfly Knight appears, The Adventure of the Arcadian Bull is more serviceable than exciting, so had he not appeared, then the quest would not been worthy of the Player-knights. Fortunately, he does appear and the scenario is all the better for it. Hopefully, it raises a standard that will be maintained for the rest of ‘The Faerie Trilogy’.