Pendragon Play Report - Year 2, Session 1
Last play report got way too long so I'll be doing them per session this time around.
We had a new knight join us this time: Sir Valerius, a Welsh knight who was just off-screen last year becoming friends with Sir Eogrim and Elias, as well as his squire, Griflet, who will become relevant shortly.
I started off by asking them to recap the session with the idea of checking which parts they'd forget so I could write it down, only to find that they remembered the entire session in pretty good detail. The woes of the DM.
Early Spring, around Easter, in Cair Lion
After that we moved on to game talk, I mentioned how Arthur had been talking about this thing called "Chivalry", about how the Chivalrous Knight protects the weak and channels his strength to protect those who can't protect themselves, and are a cut above the other knights. He also met his mom, Ygraine, in St. Albans, and now she's part of the court.
Elias said he thought Chivalry was a good, Christian idea that he'd uphold when he became a Knight; Valerius said he thought it was a nice idea if a bit idealistic; and Eogrim went along with it, just agreeing with everyone even if in his heart of hearts he might not necessarily feel that way.
Following this discussion, a squire barges into the room with a death knight draped atop his horse and tells the story of Sir Myles, who was travelling around the nearby Nain Forest (this was around Newport, Wales) when he came upon a tree filled with shields in its branches, and a big black shield at the base next to a wooden mallet. Sir Myles hit the shield with the mallet and a Black (Sable) Knight sallied from the abandoned tower nearby, challenged him to a joust of war (with real weapons), and killed him.
I ask the players if they've ever met this dead knight, Valerius says he does know him, and Elias says he was his previous mentor before Eogrim.
Griflet, Valerius' squire, immediately throws himself at Arthur's feet and begs him leave to fight the Sable Knight for his glory. Elias, not wanting to be overshadowed by an NPC, does the same and says that he should be the one to avenge his former mentor.
Arthur asks them to reconsider but they are steeled in their determination, and so they went forth.
The Sable Knight and the Tree of Shields
They arrived and that exact thing happened.
They found a tree of shields, they hit it, Elias and Griflet tried jousting the knight in order and both got extremely bodied - Griflet worse than Elias - so Valerius and Eogrim dragged them back to court and told Arthur what happened.
Arthur was seemingly livid and went to his chambers. Next morning, Arthur is nowhere to be seen, but Sir Kay, his brother, thinks for sure he went and got himself into trouble with the Sable Knight. He asked the knights who knew the way already to grab someone (Lanceor of Benwick) and go after him.
On the way, these knights plus Elias who shouldn't be riding but was found Merlin as he jumped from behind a tree, on top of Valerius horse, and basically went "YEE HAW LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
They arrived to find to knights struggling on the ground for a dagger to kill eachother - the Sable Knight and a mysterious blue kni- it was Arthur, of course it was Arthur, who else could it be.
Merlin, without missing a beat, whacks the Sable Knight in his noggin' and he goes straight to sleep, as well as Arthur, then he asks our lads to take Arthur to Llan Illthyd Fawr, the hermitage of St. Illthyd, for his healing, while the magician-prophet himself jumps back to the forest just like he came.
They didn't notice it at the time (because I forgot, Valerius DID ask about it), but the Sword of Peace that Arthur drew from the stone, Clarent, laid broken on the ground nearby.
Our dutiful knights do as they're told, and I speed along a bit to disguise from the fact that this whole goose chase kinda didn't have much in the way of player choice unfortunately, and so we take them to the hermitage.
Llan Illthyd Fawr
At the monastery, Lanceor says he's going back to the court to advise and tell them where they are and I ask the players what they're doing. Eogrim asks the monks to train him in reading, Valerius is just chilling & pogging around with the monks trying to absorb some knowledge, and Elias - who is still hurt as fuck - decides to hang back and watch Arthur's beautiful white stallion so that no ne'er-do-well steals it while they're away.
A few days later, a group of teenage girls show up, among them a face familiar to Elias: Princess Guinevere of Cameliard!
She and her handmaids ask about the horse, Elias says it belongs to someone important and even close to the Crown, so Guinevere asks if she can see them. Elias has misgivings (and Elias' player later said that it's because they knew something was up but wanted to protect Guinevere, interestingly) but Guinevere reveals a little box with a balsam which she says can cure both him and whoever is wounded in there, so Elias lets her in.
Little did he know that this would cause Arthur to fall in love with Guinevere.
Both him and Valerius witness this and then the princess goes away. That night, that rascal Merlin comes back, and the following day - spring equinox - all of the wounds of Arthur and Elias had been cured.
The Sword in the Lake
The GPC says to put a Nuckalavee fight here, I disagreed with it both because we were strapped for time (Kirko had to go early) and because I think it's trying to disguise the fact that the players are just along for the ride.
Instead I just had Merlin tell them straight up: Witness this.
They followed him through strange, dark pathways that knights never tread along the forest until they found a lake, and besides it the Sable Knight, now identified as King Pellinore of North Wales, who had been disappeared for a while now.
Arthur and Merlin take a little boat and go up to the center of the lake, where a little white hand extends itself from it with a sword and gives it to Arthur. Him and the magician trade words that our knights can't hear, and then they go back to shore.
Arthur says that Clarent, the Sword of Peace, was broken. What he had here was Excalibur, the Sword of War. And that's where we left off.
Next session: A half-giant comes knocking and our first battle happens! Stay tuned.