Companion Chronicles #12: The Adventure of the Secret Admirer

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 use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be 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 Secret Admirer is an adventure for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, six page, 3.68 MB PDF.

The layout is a little untidy and it is lightly illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer is suitable to run with any campaign for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It is nominally set in the county of Sussex, but can be easily be shifted elsewhere to suit the Game Master’s campaign.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer is suitable for knights of all types. It will appeal to Player-knights who uphold the ideals of courtly romance in particular. It is suitable for play with smaller groups of Player-knights or even a single Player-knight.

Player-knights with a good Recognise skill and a high Jousting (Charge) skill will be at an advantage.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer begins with the Lady Colette approaching the Player-knights for a favour. Her parents are unhappily married, Sir Uren, her father a gruff and elderly knight famed for his bravery during the Saxon Wars, her mother, the Lady Elise, a French heiress. During the last two months whilst her father has been away, her mother has been visited by a succession of knights, each bearing flowers and declaring her to be the most beautiful lady in Sussex. Each knight claims to have been defeated in a joust by the Knight of the Flowers, the terms of the defeat requiring that they each deliver the flowers and make the declaration. None though, saw the face of Knight of the Flowers. Lady Colette is worried how her father will react to this flood of romantic intention and asks the Player-knights to find the Knight of the Flowers and persuade him to stop.

The scenario is short, in two parts—though with options to expand it a little—and should take no more than a session to play through. In the first part, the Player-knights will ride back and forth across the county in search of the various defeated knights and question them in turn. Some may want to joust, others require a little help, but the Player-knights will quickly learn where the Knight of the Flowers might be found. In the second part, the Player-knights confront the Knight of the Flowers and may well discover exactly who he is… This final encounter is quite challenging as the Knight of the Flowers is a highly skilled jouster. Any Player-knight will need the combination of a good skill, the benefit of a successfully invoked and suitable Passion, and a good die roll if he is to beat the Knight of the Flowers. This also means that there is a not unreasonable chance of the Player-knights failing to defeat him and finding themselves having to deliver flowers to the Lady Elise.

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer is a short, straightforward adventure. One element it does not employ as written are any Player-knight’s Traits or Passions. This is a major omission and the Game Master will need to work with her players to develop opportunities for this.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Secret Admirer is a charming affair that is easy to prepare and run, but just let down the lack of sophistication when it comes to the full use of Pendragon, Sixth Edition’s signature character mechanics.