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Leingod last won the day on February 12 2019

Leingod had the most liked content!

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About Leingod

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    Senior Member


  • RPG Biography
    Not very much. Mostly I started in Dungeons & Dragons like a lot of people, experimented with White Wolf Games, got into Pendragon because of my love of Arthurian mythos, then found Glorantha and Chaosium through King of Dragon Pass.
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    Right now? None.
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    I actually havent' played many games, even though I read a lot of gamebooks.

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  1. That might just because the focus there is on Rigsdal as a sub-cult of Elmal, and perhaps Rigsdal is worshiped in other contexts that emphasize things like the dance. Maybe he can be approached through Orlanth in that way?
  2. Couldn't he just as easily be a maternal cousin to explain that?
  3. Another possible point in favor of the idea that Leodegrance is on the older side and had Guenevere later in life is that her cousin, who helps facilitate the False Guenevere episode, is a knight named Sir Bertholai, once called "the Red" but later "the Old," known as the best warrior in Cameliard despite his age. Now, the ages of the main players at any given time is often a bit sticky (it feels like pretty much everyone's a senior citizen come Camlann), but if Bertholai is "old" I personally would assume he's notably older than most of the "main cast" at Camelot, including his cousin. Admittedly, there are still any number of reasons for him to have been born so much earlier than Guenevere (he was the son of Leodegrance's older bastard brother, or of an older sister, or an older son who was disinherited, etc.), but it's equally easy to say that Leodegrance's sibling(s) just had kids at an early or normal age while Leodegrance had Guenevere later in life. Which also potentially makes his siring a girl by his seneschal's wife a little more understandable, if perhaps he was despairing of ever having a child of his own by his wife and sought comfort in the arms of another, with the irony that he'd literally just got done conceiving said child. Speaking of Guenevere's cousin(s), according to Mallory she's got two more, named Garaunt and Guy. The former of these seems very similar to "Geraint," called "Erec" by Chretien and who is otherwise absent in Mallory, so some think there's a connection there. Which is interesting, as Geraint is said to be a king of Dumnonia/Cornwall, while in the Book of Sires it comes about that Cameliard is formed from the Cornovii who remain behind rather than settle in Cornwall (which also means Guenevere might be a distant relative to Mark).
  4. I'm not saying I want Arthur to just suddenly become a better warrior and/or general than Lot out of the blue and win because of that, to clarify. I mean I'd like more stuff along the lines of when Arthur fights Pellinore and then befriends him, which leads directly to Pellinore coming to his aid and killing Lot. Arthur still had outside help both in fighting Pellinore and then in battling Lot, but it all still came about as a result of Arthur's own actions and character.
  5. This is true, I definitely think they overplay their hand a bit regarding Uther's flaws as a person and a king, and I know at least some people here agree. Though I will say I think Uther serves a narrative purpose better by being, if not a terrible king, not a terribly just or fair one. It helps highlight Arthur's devotion to being Just if Uther took advantage of his kingly prerogatives to be very Arbitrary, focusing mostly on the advancement of himself and his favorites over actually serving the best interests of his subjects as a whole... But that only works if Uther is also portrayed convincingly as a mighty warrior and warlord who protects Britain from threats no one else can handle as well, and the number of times he needs Merlin or someone else to hold his hand makes it harder to buy that. Which is also my issue with a lot of Arthur's victories in the Boy King period, actually; it's hard to feel like Arthur is really coming into his own, growing into his role as a king and leader, and triumphing over incredible odds when at every turn Merlin is openly and repeatedly pulling out miracles left and right to make it all happen. But that's getting into a different topic. Moving back to Uther, I have this personal thing where I like to think the portrayals of the reigns of Uther and his brothers are reflective of how Arthur's been portrayed by various story-telling traditions, with Constans drawing from the French tradition where Arthur is good-natured but largely ineffectual (le roi fainéant), Aurelius Ambrosius drawing from Geoffrey of Monmouth's portrayal of Arthur as sort of a last gasp for Rome and empire, and Uther drawing from the Welsh tradition of a mighty warrior and war-chief before all else, who often quarrels with the church and treats his own court/warband as synonymous with Britain itself.
  6. I always saw it as, anywhere between Earth and Sky that there's Air to breathe and you can feel wind on your skin? That's the Middle Air. Earth and Air are married, it only makes sense they're very close.
  7. For some reason until around the Book of Sires I was somehow under the impression that Cador was Gorlois's brother, even though that would mean he wasn't actually related to Arthur by blood, just to Ygraine's daughters. Him being a maternal uncle through Ygraine makes a lot more sense, though it seems he missed out on all the magical inheritance implied in the Book of Sires (maybe it only goes through the female line?). Although that might be a good enough explanation about the age thing: Ygraine and her daughters all seem to age much more slowly than normal people, so why not Cador?
  8. I'm actually really liking what I'm reading of Paladin so far, and I think there's a lot of stuff I'll want to try to port over to Pendragon (and vice versa if I ever get to do a Paladin game), but I'm having a bit of a real case of dissonance when it comes to how overtly medieval Paladin gets in the treatment of religion in particular. Like, Pendragon lets you play a pagan or other non-Christian if the GM okays it, any tension between Christians and non-Christians is mostly down to roleplay, and in most of the wars in Pendragon religion is, if it comes up, usually more a division/tension-builder that helps spark a war than a primary cause. And throughout most of the books I've read, Arthur's attempts to convert people to Christianity mostly consisted of setting up and protecting religious institutions to preach to them, mostly to the Picts. Then you get to Paladin, and participating in the slaughter or forced conversion of hundreds if not thousands for the heinous crime of not being Christian is now suddenly A Thing that the game as written seems to expect you to be doing when the chance arises, and - perhaps the real sticking point for me - both narrative and game mechanics will treat this as unquestionably noble and heroic and pat you on the back for. Which, as someone who is both a modern 21st century human and not a Christian, is not really something I can comfortably get behind. I can handle somewhat realistic portrayals of religious beliefs in a historical period, but I really can't bring myself to uncritically valorize them just because it's in keeping with the spirit of the source material. I think it might also be a tonal thing. Pendragon, to me, is always best when tinged with melancholy, and dwelling upon how often reality falls short of an ideal, how fleeting success is, how impossible perfection is, etc. It makes it easier for me to consider Arthur and Lancelot and the rest of that lot admirable and heroic even though in some ways they're all kind of total messes as time goes on. Meanwhile, even though a lot of the characters I'm looking at in Paladin seem just as flawed, but yet angels and saints and such are constantly leaping to their aid whenever they get in a rough spot, even when it's a problem of their own making. I think there's kind of a more triumphant tone in what I've read so far of Paladin that just rings a little hollow for me? I don't know, I'm rambling at this point, and I don't want to let it go unsaid that I've been poring over the book for hours at a time for the last few days ever since I got it, looking things up, getting ideas, etc., so I certainly don't want to give the impression that I haven't gotten a lot of value and enjoyment out of it, and I think there's a lot of stuff that could be used to great effect in Pendragon. Just not most of the religious stuff, at least for me (though a Patron Saint/Patron Deity thing to give a minor bonus might be cool, add a bit of extra flavor to the players' families...).
  9. They're probably Gagarth's. In addition to his Wild Hunt already being known to have hounds in it, Gagarth (called "Chase-Everything" in the myth) is stated to have "sent ravening beasts to nip at Wandering Star's hooves."
  10. Cool. I wonder if that plays into the Yanadlings' decision to abandon the worship of gods for spirits? Them being survivors of the North Clan and all.
  11. Odayla is probably an even better example of that than Yinkin. And of course there's the fact that Raven is often believed to be a mask/guise/form/whatever of Eurmal/Trickster, but at least recognizably acts very much like a spirit in-game.
  12. There's also Narva, goddess of beer and brewers.
  13. Actually, in-game your clan members assume that "Daughter of Vingkot" just means that they're distant descendants of Vingkot. And in fact, Redalda herself is just the daughter of one of the "daughters." Which is essentially the same thing as Beren: And yeah, what your clan assumes isn't necessarily closer to the truth, but my own thought on it is that if a few of them are claiming actual, direct descent from Vingkot we can give them the benefit of the doubt unless there's a good reason to believe otherwise. I mean, we don't actually even really know much about the Rams who move into the valley and where they're from or any of that; all we really know is that they apparently consider Durev obscure and that the Infithtelli hate them and call them enemies.
  14. Definitely going to enjoy playing this game again on PC. Glad I got the heads-up; I'd kind of forgotten about the port! Also glad this reminded me to check the wiki to refresh my memory and see the stuff that's gone up there since I last looked. Slim, but at least one of the "Kestaytelli" clans definitely has some of Vingkot's blood among their number, given Redalda.
  15. That's pretty close to how I handle it, unless I'm misunderstanding you. My take is that, to a lady, a marriage to a noble is exactly as momentous and as much of a confirmation of status as being knighted is to a man, and thus just as the man gets 1,000 Glory off the bat once he is knighted, the lady gets 1,000 Glory for marrying someone of at least knightly status (but only the first time it happens). Then you factor in all the other stuff that adds Glory to the marriage, much as how a man gets his Glory from being knighted and then accounts for whatever titles and lands he's inherited separately from that, and just as a man gets way more Glory from inheriting high titles and lots of lands, a lady gets far more Glory add-ons from marrying a man who has the above instead of just his knighthood.
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