Pendragon Play Report - Year 3, Sessions 3 and 4

02 Nov, 2024

Last session ended with the cliffhanger of a lady running out of the castle and turning into the new hag. As it turns out she WASN'T around, even though Sir Elias wanted to go hunt for her, and so we kept on after the Best Wine in the World.

I'll ignore the random encounters along the road because they mostly didn't affect us much.

This happened over 2 sessions, which I mixe in here because written out it's not a lot.

The Adventure of the Best Wine in the World

A few weeks later, in mid summer, the gang kept going north. Eventually they got to the border of Cantref Gwaelod in a rainy, thundering weather and found themselves an old crone on the road - ugly, ash-gray skin, skin with gnarled growths, fetid breath, etc - who said: “Another batch of heroes to seek the countess, I suppose. You will have to be better than the last ones, if you want to keep your heads. Not everyone can rescue that beautiful prisoner. Just remember, don’t speak to the lord of your mission here. Soldiers he likes, wooers of Tryamor he does not.”

They were like ??? and kept going.

Eventually they arrived at the Tower of the Sea and are introduced to the household: Count Gwyddno Garanhir, his wife Tryamor, his elderly advisor Sethenin, his son Elffin, and a little child on Elffin's lap with smart eyes.

The First Day

They're invited to stay, a feast takes place, and at the end of it they find out that the count is under a geas which compels him to drink everything put in front of him, but to fall asleep whenever he does.

After the count is dragged away the Countess asked them all about their opinion on treasure and greed. All of them tried to be good Christian boys but Sir Eogrim was the flakiest.

That night, a serving maiden visited him and said her lady would like to meet with him. Lady Tryamor then explained how the count was a violent man who had taken everything from her and kept her as a slave here, and he has a goblet called the Cup of Ogmios worth the ransom of 10 knights, if Eogrim would be willing to steal her away in exchange for it. To do so, he's encouraged to ask for Noah's Wine 3 nights hence, and when the count falls asleep, he can snatch it and run away.

Eogrim says "ehhh I guess!" and goes back to sleep.

The Second Day

The elderly advisor Sir Seithenin asks the knights to accompany him on patrol. Gwaelod is protected by a massive seawall / dike. Elias and Eogrim go, Valerius stays behind. They don't notice it, but the level of the water is perilously high.

The same thing happens again: dinner, count falls asleep, Tryamor engages the visitors in conversation, this time about love and adultery. All of them try once more to be good Christian boys, but Elias is the one who flakes because of the guilty conscience over having sex with Sir Sagramore earlier in the year.

That night the lady visits him, spins her sad yarn once more, and then tries to seduce him and offers him her hand in marriage if he saves her. Elias rejects her BUT gives his word that he'll help. In Pendragon, giving your word is very important - he basically staked 2 out of his 18 points of Honour into saying he'd do it. This will come back to bite his ass.

The Third Day

Once more, Sir Seithenin asks for volunteers to go. Once more, Elias and Eogrim go, Valerius stays behind. On the dike, Elias and Eogrim notice that the water is even higher than before, with whitecaps cascading over the earthworks and peasants repairing it.

Meanwhile, the young boy approaches Valerius and prophesizes that 1. he has provoked the death of King Maelgwn of Gwynedd unknowingly due to him allowing the hag Fad Felen to survive; and 2. that he shouldn't try any stealthy bullshit. If he wants to ask something, he should go straight up.

The players discuss what they should do and what is their plan, knowing all this. They leave most of the decisions up to the dice and to their characters, and finally decide that they'll follow the Countess' plans even if they all believe the child to be correct.

That night on the feast a bard tells an old story about The Knight of the Swan. He seeks a woman he saw in a dream - the Shining Queen. He discovers she is the wife of the King of the Castle of Bones, and he prepares to steal the woman by stealth. Before he acts however, a crow brings him a head, which describes the story of its own failed sleuthing. The Knight of the Swan then alters his plan and walks through the front gate to confront the hoary old king. Heroic combat ensues, but finally the Swan Knight wins, marries the queen, and becomes king.

Valerius also knows that the Knight of the Swan resisted three temptations; of drink, of lust, and of treasure. He won because he was forthright, honourable, and courteous.

When the song is done, the bard retires.

Elias asks for the Wine of Noah. The Count says that “This is sometimes called the Wine of Shame,” he says, “Because in the eastlands, where the sun rises from the dead, lived a sailor named Noah. After a long voyage he drank from this brew, and fell senseless to the ground so that his children mocked and shamed him. Some of that ignoble brew is here, for our drinking.”¹

The clay jug is opened, decanted, and poured into a solid gold goblet encrusted with pearls - the Cup of Ogmios - and Lady Tryamor goes from person to person around the table offering them to sip it. Valerius is overpowered by the alcohol and falls asleep, but she doesn't offer it to her agents, Elias and Eogrim.

Then she offers it to the advisor... who drinks all of the wine and passes out. The lady then asks the count to look at her, holds his hands, and goes "ELIAS, EOGRIM, NOW!!!"

Bewildered, the count goes "w-what?"

Elias rises up, and proceeds NOT to do the plan, because the count hasn't fallen asleep, but rather to challenge the count directly for the freedom of the countess.

The count says "Alright. IF you can defeat my challenges three." Except one of the challenges was a drinking contest with the advisor currently asleep, so he skips that one and goes directly for the second one: a wrestling match with his champion.

They go to another room, he sends his wife away, and in comes his champion: the old hag from the crossroads!

Elias fails to defeat her and the adventure ends. Lol.

• DM's Note: I hadn't noticed she didn't have a statblock listed out, so I had to solve it the way the adventure recommends: roll Brawling v Brawling until someone wins 3 times. Possibly the most boring and anticlimactic way to solve something with a session's worth of buildup. I would like to see how Greg Stafford ran this at his table and what was his player's reactions.

They hang their head in shame and are expelled from Gwaelod, visit Eogrim's cousin, and then we elide the rest of the year with them coming back to Cair Lion.

Sir Kay tells them that, since Valerius wasn't at the wedding feast to ask for a boon, and since Eogrim's boon was so generous, Arthur decided to send the 3 of them to the service of King Leodegrance of Cameliard - the king's father in law.

We then ran the Winter Phase (aka Downtime) and had a little feast, but overall it was unfortunately a bit of a bummer. But it is what it is, failure must always be on the table as a possible resolution, and that was an important reminder of that, but I'm still miffed that the adventure didn't provide even a basic statblock for the creature - and I couldn't just roll one up on the spot because we were already late.

Disappointing, and a reminder to always be very thorough when prepping prewritten adventures for Pendragon, because they're written for the kind of player who apprently loves to makes 4 dry rolls to check if they win the big cheese instead of actually making interesting choices.

Anyway, next time on SUNRISE QUEST: the northern barons are looking very ornery about Arthur's demands, we'll be having a war and I'll be testing the Hârn combat system - which might very well result in a death! Stay tuned!!!