A couple fit this bill, but the ones starring at me, begging to be played, are both Age of Arthur / Chivilaric RPGs.
Pendragon and Chivalry & Sorcery.
Now I have played earlier editions of both of these, but these two have been sitting on my shelf all year and I want to do more with them both.
Both have been around forever it seems and both are in their Fifth (or so) Editions.
I really need to do a lot more with them both.
Dragon #125 comes to us from a magical time in ancient history known as the Fall of 1987. This issue is from September 1987 in particular. I just met this girl from the dorm next door. She had already kicked everyone's ass in cards in her dorm and now she was over at mine to humiliate everyone here. So yeah we quickly became friends, then best friends and sis years later we were dating and today is our 26th wedding anniversary. So yeah, I look back at this time rather fondly.
Dragon #125's special feature is Chivalry. Not a bad choice with all the Arthurian movies I have been watching this month. The cover art by Roger Raupp is a great portrayal of Arthur vs Modred.
Letters include one to remind us the Wormy has appeared in 100 issues at this point. Sadly the end is near. Also mentioned is Finieous Fingers which hadn't appeared in Dragon for a long time. There is also a letter about religion in D&D and the DragonRaid game gets mentioned.
Nice ad for the Science Fiction Book Club. This would have been around the time I joined for the second time and I see a number of books here I still have. This was my transition phase of moving out of dark fantasy and into horror proper.
Forum has the usual collection of deep cuts for the game. One, in particular, discusses a letter from #121 about parthenogenesis in Amazons and delves into the details of the mating habits of harpies. Is this Dragon Forum or Penthouse Forum? Likely to have the same level of "Dear Editors, I could not believe this, but this really happened..."
The first true article comes up and it is a neat one. Nigel D. Findley gives us The Ecology of the Greenhag. The central idea revolves around the notion that all hag types are born of the mating of a Night Hag and various humanoid species. It is a neat idea really. I like that the Night Hag has a gestation period of 13 months. Greenhags likewise can give birth to an Annis after their "quite frequent" matings with ogres or hill giants. No indication on how the Sea Hags or other hags fit into this.
Ed Greenwood is up with a Realms article. This was the start of the Golden Age of the Forgotten Realms. The article, Woodlands of the Realms, covers magical and mundane trees and forests of the Forgotten Realms. You have to give the guy credit, he came up with some good stuff even in the minutia such as this.
Our special section of Chivalry begins next.
The Code of Chivalry by Mark Easterday gives us some knightly orders and what to do with them. There are benefits and drawbacks for PC Knights and even a simple system for honor. It is nothing Earth-shattering, but it has appeal in it's simplicity. It is also something more people should be doing with knights, cavaliers, and paladins.
Nice big ad for the Time-LIFE Mysteries of the Unkown series, now frustratingly incomplete at your local used book store.
Thomas M. Kane is next with Meanwhile Back at the Fief... This one covers all the duties of a feudal lord. There are some details on day-to-day activities and tables of odd occurrences. I seem to recall some similar rules in the D&D Companion set. These came after that so I wonder how they compare.
Armies from the Ground Up by James A. Yates is next and deals with the hows and whys of raising an army in an AD&D game specifically. Again, very useful to have.
A "new" section that was going to be semi-regular is up, Lords & Legends. I have no idea how much or for how long it continued. A quick Google search shows it came up at least one more time. This is entering as bit of a "Dark" time for me and Dragon. I was in college and any spare money went to food, school supplies, or...other school supplies. It is "dark" in the sense that it is a period that is unknown to me. I remember reading this issue back then, but my Dragon purchases would be only for special occasions like the October issues.
For this Lords & Legends from Katharine Kerr we have three lords of the Age of Chivalry; Count William of Orange, Bertrand (nephew of William), and Count Rainouart of Tortelose. All from the Chanson de Roland ("Song of Roland").
Our last article in this series is Glory, Danger, and Wounds by Garry Hamlin. This article also draws on The Song of Roland for inspiration and deals with battle and honor for Cavaliers. Large battles and private duels are discussed. More importantly how such battles and duels should and should not be used.
The Best for the Best covers elite espionage agencies for Top Secret and is a rare non-Merle M. Rasmussen article. This one is from William Van Horn and it is more proper for the Top Secret S.I. game that Rasmussen did not develop.
For our centerpiece, we get a new "mini" game from David "Zeb" Cook, Clay-O-Rama, a miniatures battle game where the playing pieces are made from clay or Play-doh. You get some friends, some dice, some pencils, and some modeling clay (Play-Doh is recommended) and you get started making your Claydonian to do battle. Make sure you leave some clay/playdoh aside for missiles The rules are really simple, you move, you attack, you calculate damage. The whole thing takes up three page and a cover. Pull it out of your magazine and you are good to go. It does look like silly fun, to be honest.
Our fiction selection is by Lois Tilton titled The Passing of Kings.
Lee Ian Wurn is up with a rare post-Gary Greyhawk article. In the Bazaar of the Bizarre, we have the Magical Maps of Greyhawk. We get magical maps that more or less are the magical GPSs of their day. The article though gave me an idea. What if there was a giant magical Bazaar, like what you find on Deva in the Myth Adventures books by Robert Lynn Asprin. I could make each article a stall, like you find in those giant flea markets or the vendor's room at Gen Con. And just to be that guy, the stalls have the same number of the magazine they appeared in. This shop of magical maps is found in stall #125.
Jeff Grubb is up with Plane Speaking. This time featuring the Positive Quasi Elementals. There are only three, Radiance (Fire-Positive), Steam (Water-Positive), and Mineral (Earth-Positive). The Lightning (Air-Positive) appeared in the Monster Manual II.
The Game Wizards talks about the new Dragonlance Adventures hardcover. This was a rather popular book with my small group in college. There were a lot of ideas I freely stole from it for my own games. I also thought it was odd about the hard cap of 20 levels. Now that is normal.
A Second Look at Zebulon's Guide comes to us from Kim Eastland and covers all sorts of errata and clarifications. I was out of Star Frontiers at this point having switched over to FASA Doctor Who and Star Trek. I have heard that Zebulon's Guide changed things but I will admit I do now know to what degree.
Big ad for Mayfair's updated City-State of the Invincible Overlord
Role-Playing Reviews is next covering three fantasy adventures. This is another one of the articles that would get WotC into trouble despite their good intentions. The article is Copyrighted 1987 by Ken Rolston, which means he likely still held the reprint rights. The adventures in question are The Grey Knight for Pendragon, Phantom of the Northern Marches for MERP, and Treasure Hunt for AD&D. We learn something we had suspected at this time, that the term "Module" was growing out of fashion. So for the adventures Rolston lets us know that the Grey Knight is one of the best he has seen, Treasure Hunt is a fantastic adventure for 0-level AD&D characters, and Phantom is wonderful.
The Role of Books covers some of the new releases for the last quarter of 1987. There is the Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son, a couple from Harry Turtledove, and the debut (more or less) of Peter David who later go on to be one of America's most prolific authors.
Jeff Grub's Marvel-Phile is up with some enemies for the Incredible Hulk; Abomination and Zzzax, and an ally, Doc Samson. I was thinking about Abomination just the other day while trying to decide if I should include the Hulk movies in my Marvel re-watch that I might never get around to.
Gamer's Guide has the classified ads. I wonder how many of these places were still around.
Convention Calendar covers the cons of Fall 1987.
Three pages of Snarf Quest, a page of DragonsMirth, and three of Wormy.
Some interesting bits to be sure, but nothing that jumps out to me to be used today. The Greenhag stuff is fun, but I have taken my hags into a completely different direction really. While everyone talks with glowing nostalgia for the Dragons prior to these (and I do as well) there is a lot between 1987 and 1997 that I never read and only have briefly glanced at. So that might be my new sweet spot for The Old Dragon.
I have to admit I often judge my Athurs, Gueneveres, and Lancelots based on the examples set by Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero. Let's be honest. Vanessa Redgrave is adorable here. I am not 100% convinced that she did not contribute to me having so many blue-eyed, redheaded characters.
Arthur's meeting with Guenevere is one of my favorites. And I fully admit I still hum "Camelot" whenever I watch another movie about Arthur.
The story here follows, more or less, the T.H. White "Once and Future King" novel.
Arthur's conversations with "Jenny" are really fantastic. I mean the attitudes are more modern, but that is fine since the setting is more Ren Faire than post-Roman Britain. I find Richard Harris' Arthur enthusiasm infectious.
Also if you ever wanted a better depiction of an AD&D Paladin then you can't do much better than Camelot's Lancelot. The scene where Lancelot is jousting with Sir Dinadan, accidentally mortally wounds and then heals him has stuck with me for years as the example of laying on hands. I can't help but think this is what Gygax had in mind when he wrote the Paladin class.
The movie does drag on a bit, it is nearly 3 hours, but I am hesitant to suggest any cuts.
The scene where Lancelot rescues Guenevere is both profoundly heroic and profoundly sad at the same time. Give this to Richard Harris, he makes you feel Arthur's pain.
Arthur, "For what? Revenge. The most worthless of causes."
I might lack the historical gravitas of Excalibur and have nearly nothing in common with real history but I don't care.
Much like reading Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, I think this is a must-view for any fan of the myths and tales of King Arthur.
Gaming Content
Nothing directly here save what all the tales of Arthur can give us. BUT given the musical nature of this movie, it does make me wonder if a game where everyone is a bard might work. Lusty Month of May indeed.
This Lancelot, maybe more than any other, is a great example of a Paladin in D&D.
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Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies. Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), is not one of those. It's not that it takes so many liberties with the tale, that is expected. It's the liberties are fairly nonsensical and some are just bad. For starters, while Charlie Hunnam is ok as Arthur, he is really much too old for the role.
Jude Law reunites with his Sherlock director Guy Ritchie and gives us a decent enough Vortigern, but I felt he wasn't really giving the part all he could.
Supergirl's Katie McGrath appears as Elsa, Vortigern's wife, making this her second dip into the Arthurian legends. She had played Morganna in "Merlin" (I'll be getting to that soon).
Djimon Hounsou appears as Sir Bedivere. Frankly, I enjoy every role he has played, but I felt he was phoning this one in. I also felt Eric Bana was miscast, but honestly, I am not entirely I have seen him in anything that I liked him in. Even his Nero in Star Trek seemed a little off to me.
The movie feels like it has too much "Games of Throne" or "Vikings" envy. To that end, Aidan Gillen appears as Sir William, but all I could see was Little Finger. At least he was using his real accent here.
Of course, there were other things I could pick on, like there being Vikings in Britain at all at this time, or even Chinese people at this point; figuring this was between 550AD and 1040AD.
There is more, but not enough to write about, to be honest. Interestingly enough my wife, who doesn't care for the King Arthur story, really likes this one.
What good can I grab from this? Well, I liked Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey as the Mage, Merlin's apprentice. I always felt Merlin needed to have a couple more apprentices. I'll also talk about this when I discuss "Cursed."
Gaming Content
Back in Jr. High, I was playing in a D&D game (Basic/Expert) set in Medieval Britain in the time of Arthur. Of course, as most Jr. High games in the early 80s were, this one devolved rather quickly on who was going to kill Arthur and claim Excalibur as their own. I grew tired of that campaign rather quickly and instead wanted to play in Middle Earth.
But ever since then I have been very, very curious about the RPG Chivalry & Sorcery. Seeing ads in Dragon Magazine only added to the mystery of the game. I am going to have to spend some time with that.
Another bit of content, something that I think comes for the later retellings of the Knights of Camelot, is the notion of the New Religion (Christianity) vs. The Old Ways (Paganism). We saw this in Excalibur and it was a central focus of The Mists of Avalon (which I also hope to talk about). This movie did not feature it all that much, but the thought was still there. I like this sort of interaction and love putting it into my games when I can.
Excalibur (1981)
Ok. So it's not perfect in its retelling of King Authur's tale, nor is it a great representation of say Dark Ages, post-Roman-Britain arms, and armor. But it is still a fun movie with some seriously epic scenes and moments.
First, let's take a moment to appreciate this cast; Nigel Terry as King Arthur, Nicol Williamson as Merlin, Nicholas Clay as Lancelot, Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere, Helen Mirren as Morgana, Liam Neeson as Gawain, Gabriel Byrne as Uther Pendragon, Corin Redgrave as Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance. Seriously. It would have been enough for me just to have Helen Mirren as Morgana. Everything else is just gravy.
Rewatching it now, after a lifetime of reading and rereading various tales of King Authur, I am pleased with how well this one holds up. I do recall there being a bit of gore, but it was more than even I remembered.
Watching this now makes me want to do a "King Authur" film fest. There are a few really great ones and a few terrible ones. But all the same, it would be fun.
The tale is largely what we all know, but that doesn't make it less fun. On the contrary, it makes even more enjoyable at times because you are expecting certain things.
I think Nicol Williamson might very well be one of the best cinematic Merlin's ever. Not just in the look and manner, but pretty much everything he does. Equal parts wizard and fool. Perfect as the advisor to a King.
Authur: No riddles Merlin, a simple "yes." That really frightens me.
The exchange between Merlin and Morgana at Authur's and Guenevere's wedding imprinted so deep on my unconsciousness that I don't doubt that my fascination with pagan witches wasn't intensified 100 fold here. Also, my enduring love for Helen Mirren certainly began here.
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| Can you really blame me? |
Ultimately King Authur, like most Celtic stories, is a tragedy. The betrayal of Lancelot, the birth of Modred, the Quest for the Grail.
Merlin: A dream to some. A nightmare to others!
While the first half is much better than the latter half, the return of Lancelot to Authur's side is one of the great and saddest cinematic moments in Authur's tale.
Yes. An Authurian filmfest is in order.
Gaming Content
Again, are you serious?
One of the best bits, for me, was the Charm of Making, spoken in old Irish (sorta).
Anál nathrach,
orth’ bháis's bethad,
do chél dénmha
or
Serpent's breath,
charm of death and life,
thy omen of making.
Great stuff really.
