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.
—oOo—
It is a full colour, thirty-one page, 16.28MB PDF.
The layout is tidy and it is reasonably illustrated.
Where is the Quest Set?
Where is the Quest Set?
Feast of the Forest is a one-shot (or potential campaign starter) scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It takes place in East Anglia during the Anarchy Period.
Who should go on this Quest?
Feast of the Forest includes six pre-generated Player-knights.
What does the Quest require?
Feast of the Forest requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set. The Hunting, Folklore, and Horsemanship skills will prove useful during the play of the scenario.
Where will the Quest take the Knights?
Feast of the Forest opens with the Player-knights ambushing a Saxon convoy containing a silver-laden wagon. Barely do the Player-knights have time to celebrate their success before they are presented with a moral dilemma—do they let the survivors go or do they put them to the sword? In other words, are they Merciful or are they Cruel? There are benefits to either course of action, but there are also penalties too. This is the first of many such tests in the scenario as the Player-knights first discover that the wagon was not carrying taxes, but tithes for the church and that has its own repercussions… They are forced to flee from the scene of the crime and deeper into the fens as first they are pursued by angry Saxons, and then by a creature out of Myth that literally hounds them and drives them into fear and hauntings.
The middle part of the scenario involves a radical shift in the point of view as the players roleplay villagers under attack by bandits. The realisation should come at the end of these scenes that the bandits are no mere NPCs, but the Player-knights of the previous scenes, and that the Player-knights are neither heroes nor embody chivalric ideals. Although jarring, this shift is a good way of showing how villainous the Player-knights actually are, rather than forcing their players to roleplay them committing immoral acts. Nor are they anti-heroes. They are the villains of the piece, morally compromised and very far from the oaths they took as knights. Already, the Player-knights’ decisions and actions will have had serious personal consequences. Mechanically, their acts of cruelty, sacrilege, cowardice, and so on, have earned each Player-knight ‘Curse Points’, representing his spiritual corruption and penalising skills, Traits, and ultimately his Honour. It is possible to find a path of Redemption by committing merciful acts, making confession, and the like. This is what the last part of the scenario is about. The Player-knights are given the opportunity to undertake a number of tests that will lead to a great battle, all of which will put them on the path to atonement, though the exact details of that path lie outside of the scenario. That path—and even getting to that path—is not certain and no Player-knight is under any obligation to follow it.
Feast of the Forest does require some set-up. The scenario works best when the players begin unaware exactly as to the true nature of the knights they are going to play. This requires some adjustment to the character sheets to keep that information hidden until after the scenes in the village where the players take the roles of the villagers being attacked by the knights. That way, the players and their knights can come to the conclusion that they are not heroes rather than being informed of it right from the start. The scenario is also quite complex and there is a lot to keep track of by the Game Master with the various tests, the accumulated Curse Points, and the big battle at the end to keep track of.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?
Feast of the Forest is a short, but far straightforward adventure that does something that Pendragon typically asks the players never to do. That is, play the villains. It neatly sidesteps the issue of having to roleplay villainous acts, instead focusing in the immediate consequences of said acts. Primarily, it is a one-shot, though one that is slightly too long for a single session or convention scenario given its complexity, but has potential as a campaign starter where the Player-knights are on the path to redemption. It would be interesting to see such a path explored in a sequel. Fear of the Forest is the antithesis of a classic Pendragon scenario, presenting a rare and intriguing exploration of the anti-Chivalric knight whilst suggesting that there might be a path of out of The Anarchy and the darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment