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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Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie is a supplement for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It describes itself as ‘A Resource Supplement for Pendragon’.
It is a full colour, eighty-six page, 18.60 MB PDF.
The layout is tidy.
Where is the Quest Set?
Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie is a supplement for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. Its title is Latin for ‘as the crow flies’ and it fulfils this by providing a gazetteer of the immediate twenty miles around the city of Sarum, the Castle of the Rock, seat of power for Earl Robert of Salisbury, and thus the default set-up in both the Pendragon Starter Set and the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook.
The supplement very much falls under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’ as it suggests that in that it is placed in an alternate timeline in which the connection between the world of men and the Land, caused by an imbalance in reality or ‘The Enchantment of Britain’ by the Great Betrayal of Vortigern on the Night of the Long Knives. The Player-knights are to play a role in Merlin’s plan to heal this imbalance. To reflect this, the supplement uses a fictional narrator of the time, ‘Gregory the Watcher’, who that also serves to strengthen the period worldview. However, this is an overview particular to this supplement and the Game Master is free to use it or not.
The supplement very much falls under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’ as it suggests that in that it is placed in an alternate timeline in which the connection between the world of men and the Land, caused by an imbalance in reality or ‘The Enchantment of Britain’ by the Great Betrayal of Vortigern on the Night of the Long Knives. The Player-knights are to play a role in Merlin’s plan to heal this imbalance. To reflect this, the supplement uses a fictional narrator of the time, ‘Gregory the Watcher’, who that also serves to strengthen the period worldview. However, this is an overview particular to this supplement and the Game Master is free to use it or not.
Who should go on this Quest?
Any type of Player-knight can go on this quest.
What does the Quest require?
Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.
Where will the Quest take the Knights?
The majority of Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie consists of a gazetteer of the immediate twenty miles around the city of Sarum , encompassing much of the County of Salisbury and as far as a knight can ride in a single day. The circular area ranges from the tiny village of Huish in the north to Bisterne in the County of Dorsette in the south, said to be a large hall built from a single tree by the Queen of the Fair Folk for one of her knights and from hamlet of Littleton in Hantonne County in the east to the dwelling of Kingston Deverill in the west in the County of Summerland. The map and gazetteer, inspired by King Arthur’s Round Table in The Great Hall in Winchester, is organised into sixteen arcs and within each arc, towns, villages, hamlets, and places of interest are described in turn. All of the places are taken from the Domesday Book of 1068. (That said, not every location in the region given in the Domesday Book is included. For example, Blaneford, now Blandford Forum, is absent.)
Primarily what this provides is a sense of the geography surrounding Sarum. Many of the details are mundane, but there are locations with interesting hooks that Game Master can develop, such as the aforementioned Bisterne in the County of Dorsette. The Player-knights might be given manors in these locations to manage and live in as well as raise a family, and of course, they might find themselves fighting against invading armies across this land too.
The second half of Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie is dedicated to ‘The Book of Days’, a great calendar that that explores different ways of looking at time and the year throughout this period. Specifically, this includes the years leading up to ‘The Arthurian Break’ when its history breaks from ours, followed by overviews of the Pagan Year, both solar and lunar, including dates of the full moon throughout the Pendragon Era, as well as the Christian Calendar. This includes important dates of celebration and religious observance, which can be effectively used in conjunction with the chapter on religion in the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?
Sicut Corvus Volat: Being a Wayfarer’s Companion for Sarisberie is a useful supplement for the Game Master whose campaign focuses on Sarum and the County of Salisbury and wants to add verisimilitude and bring the region, its geography, and its year to life.
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