The Second Generation

The Kingdom of Pengwern

In  all the wide Christian lands of Pengwern, the Saxon wind never blows, and the rich grain basket of Britain overflows with the fruits of honest labour and the King's Peace. Many priests attribute this success to the manifest piety of its Christian King and say that the Kingdom of Pengwern is favoured of God in what has been a dark and troubled time for Britain. Some, more cynically point at the strength of the warband, the Kings Companion, King Blaine's elite guard and the fearsome reputation of your parents the White Riders as the decisive factors which keep the kingdom safe. Perhaps both are right.

The Kingdoms of Britain

Nevertheless the Kingdom of Pengwern is at Peace. Secured by strong Alliances with Cuneglas of Powys, Uriens of Rheged, Meurig Of Gwent, and the Countess Of Cynwidion, and friendships with the ancient King Marcus the Black Spider of Dumnomia and his son Rhiothamus, the ageing King Gloddryd of Caer Lerion. A minor factor in the prosperity of Pengwern might also just possibly be the fact that the High King Uther's warband often winters in the capital under its leader Aurialanus.

However, that does not mean that things have all gone your way. While the Suth Seaxe were famously stopped by High King Uther at the Battle Of St Albanus in the year of 495, the following year Kyning Cerdic established the Kindgom of West Seaxe after his champion killed the champion of all Britain, Owain, in an epic single combat. Caer Ambros fell shortly afterwards and now lies in ruins, the only time (it is said) that the White Riders were defeated in open battle.

The Kindoms of West. Suth and Est Seaxe have grown steadily since then and now threaten the borders of Dumnomia, Cynwydion and Caer Lerion, though an uneasy peace has existed since the fall of Caer Lundein

However, there have been no wars now for many years the very last one being the so-called siege of Caer Lundein (Lundinium) in which in effect the British rulers acknowledged their Saxon overlords after a token resistance, something which in reality been true for many years. The last real challenge to Saxon rule in Caer Lundein was of course the daring rescue of Britain's only swordsmith and his family by the White Riders, a story you've hard many times sung in hall and hearth.

However talk of Saxon wars is all so far away. Justice is served, outlaws and bandits are almost non-existent, cities, towns and villas are being rebuilt, and taxes are paid with little complaint. Even the old roads and bridges are being rebuilt. All the kings of Britain are regular visitors, and even the

Saxon Kings come for state visits on occasion and their Bretwalda, or High King Aelle. is somewhat of an Uncle to all of you, since he visits most years. You are in the enviable position of being able to attest to the truth of the man, his size, his gigantic mirths and melancholies, and his love of families and children. If anything the stories are less than the reality – he is a giant of a heroic age now past and gone.

You mostly live in The Court of Pengwern (Llys Pengwern) where you are afforded the considerable freedoms which come to the latter born children of noble families. Your days are your own, and while your education has been on occasion hard, on the whole you have been happy.

However, now is the year of your majority, and soon comes the time in which tradition demands you decide what you;re going to do with the rest of your life. But still, the old saying of make hay while the sun shines, applies now more than any other times and you have descended with your friends and companions on the Villa of Bynn ap Scion, one of your fathers' old companions, with his wife Rhiannon and his beautiful daughters Eirin and Rania.

The Saxon Wind Blows

Your Britain

 

The land has seen no Roman rule for generations. The legions, their craftsmen and their vital skills all left to fight in the futile defence of a dying Empire. Once fertile land has been given over to wilderness and forest, and thriving towns are now ruined, their buildings cannibalised to maintain those very few that remain. 

With the collapse of Rome, people have starved. Many have died , and left the towns to live off the land once more , desperate to feed themselves and their children. Many sold themselves to indentured servitude, virtual slavery, to unscrupulous landowners, who used their labour to augment their own power.

You have been fortunate indeed to have been chosen for the warband of Lord Marcus of Caer Ambros for at least as you train in the boy's house you are well fed, for the Saxon wind blows often through your beleaguered home. You have all witnessed the most terrible acts of barbarism as those savage Saxon raiders swoop down on isolated homes and farmsteads, killing burning and raping, carrying off those they consider young enough to be their slaves. It is truly a Dark Age. Christians say the Saxons are the scourge of God, a punishment for the sins of your rulers but they say it quietly lest they be left to the Saxon Wind by the very rulers  they blame.

Your Lord, Marcus is responsible for the lands around Caer Ambros nd struggles to maintain Roman Law and Order in the face of the ever bolder raids by the Saxons, who focus much of their attention on this area for the powerful magics Contained by the Henge, the Abbey and the Stones. His warband is small, yet said to be one of the most skilled in the country, rivalling in quality of not in numbers that of The High King's.

Lacking numbers and the menas to increase those numbers in desperation he has turned to innovation for the salvation of his house. He has imported heavy horses from the continent, having heard how cavalry defeated the legions in the fall of Rome, and has also found a new device which seems to allow you to use your spears from horseback with much greater effect. The long spears you favour from horseback are designed to help you pierce the mail armour which you seen from tim to time on the best warriors, and that the Saxons are said to have in abundance. They are yet untried in battle.

You have all been training since the age of six to be the new Equites, and you six are the first to come out of the boys house, and made up to the Rank of household warriors. A lot of hope is pinned on you, for while many of the older warriors have been trained to use horses, they are not comfortable on horseback, preferring to ride to battle, and fight on foot once there, much like the Saxons themselves. Whatever the next few years will hold, much will depend on you, your achievements and your deeds….

The History of the Kings Of Britain

Introduction

The Age of Arthur – The Celtic Twilight – the Dark Ages – the Birth of England. These are some of the powerful and romantic names given to this most confused and yet most vital period of British history. It is an era upon which rival Celtic and English nationalisms still occasionally focus: how far, for example, were the populations of Britannia obliterated by the invading barbarians of the Angles and the Saxons, or are we still essentially Celtic, even though the larger part of Britain speaks a Germanic tongue? Recent genetic evidence has given us some startliing ideas.

Historians will no doubt be debating these and other related issues until time travel is invented, or for many generations to come anyway. But these are not our concerns, for certain things will be made clear for the purposes of our story You live in an age of settlement, an age of fire, and an age of the sword, which in itself was only a small part of a far larger picture. These are the things we will be focusing on in our ‘historia’, since as far as we're concerened this Green and Pleasant land was both won and held by force of arms.

There is a reason why the Birth of England was a dark age. One theory suggests that it was literally dark - the explosion of a volcano causing dust clouds which did much to obscure the sun – but this is not the only reason. Almost no written records exist from that period, and so we are left with unintelligible sources, or sources which were themselves written hundreds of years after the event. Aside from these we have only the archaeological record, and the faint, haunting echoes of folk memory and place names which merely hint at the bloody struggle that took place in these very hills where we live.

Welcome to the History of the Kings of Britain, itself an ancient quasi-historical fantasy, but in this context a pseudo-historical Pendragon game with possible elements of fantasy. Pendragon is no monster-bashing dungeon crawl but a socio-political game of real depth in a dark and bloody world where your survival depends upon the strength of your sword arm, and that of your sworn comrades who stand with you. In it you, the players, will have the opportunity to earn yourselves the rank and privileges of Kings.

But, and this is a BIG but, mark the phrase ‘you will have the opportunity to earn’. You will not begin as kings and the sons of kings. Opportunities will be there but you will have to make the most of them. Expect adversaries who will react to your actions, whose military strategies will change, evolve and develop as yours do and who will counter your political overtures. Expect people who will serve you and betray you, loyally defend you or stab you in the back. Who knows what the future will hold?

Who after all, are the good guys? Are they men who seek a new life and a place for their children away from the lands from which they’ve been themselves have been driven by the sword; or are they the men who defend a land as the invaders come? I personally will make no judgement on this, but I do know that history tells us that the good guys are the guys who win.