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Campaign overview

The tone of the game is historical fantasy with supernatural elements drawn from medieval beliefs rather than modern fantasy - revenants may stalk the night, padfeet may prowl country lanes, cunning-folk make charms to help or hinder, and rare individuals with learning and ambition may call upon occult powers of nature, spirits, stars or demons.

The campaign opens at Christmastide in 1192, as Crusaders return from the Holy Land and it becomes clear that King Richard is missing.

Player actions can affect the course of history, even to extremes (for example, if players assassinate Count John, there will be no King John; Arthur of Brittany will inherit the throne). In effect, we play an alternate history from Session 1.

You do not need to be an expert on medieval history to play. History is the deepest, richest source of world-building we have available, but it's up to the players to create stories in front of its backdrop. Play characters how you will. Actions have consequences, however, and I'll advise if behaviour is likely to have social ramifications before you confirm. Social status matters, and those with high status will have more leeway when dealing with people with low status then with their peers or with people of higher status.

The core campaign area is Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the southern part of the West Riding of Yorkshire  (see the maps of Unknown and Unknown), though these are not hard boundaries and characters or campaign focus may move elsewhere temporarily. Characters need not be born in or resident in this area, but should have a reason for being in it and remaining in it for some time. Since Crusaders have started to return to England following the Unknown, a creative player might find a reason for an Arab or African Muslim character to be present.

While I'm clear about the core area of the campaign - it's an area I'm familiar with and get a lot of inspiration from - I'm much more open on the style and focus of the campaign. Some suggestions to discuss in Session Zero:

  • High Politics: Count John has been spurned as heir in favour of the child Unknown and seeks to increase his power base. Unknown has been ousted as chancellor and forced out of the country, but seeks a way back to power. Unknown is missing, and no one knows where. Queen Eleanor and Richard's regents, including the legendary knight Sir William Marshall seek to preserve the peace and find the missing king. Characters may be nobles, high ranking church officials or secular officials or agents working for one faction or another. Politics, diplomacy and intrigue abound, and open conflict is more likely to be resolved with guile, troops or assassination than individual combat.
  • Low Politics: As the great men and women of the realm look to preserve or sieze the crown, the barons and leading people of Unknown seek to use the confusion to enhance their power, or at least maintain it. Player characters might be barons or their relatives, advisers and household; county officials or their staff; archdeacons, abbots or abbeses; or leading burghers.
  • Urban Campaign: Player characters are burghers and residents of a major city such as York or town such as Nottingham seeking to advance their fortunes in the markets and mean streets.
  • Investigators: The players work for an individual or organisation with sufficient power and resources to employ them (at least part time, if not full time) to investigate wrongdoings and strange events in either an official capacity (such as crown, county officials or baronial officials) or an unofficial capacity.
  • Adventurers: Similar to investigators, but the player characters between them have sufficient resources to act independently.
  • Outlaws: Whatever their origins, the players have been convicted of offences serious enough to be branded wolfsheads and banished from law abiding society. Laws no longer protect them, and they may be slain be anyone. They must live off the land and find sufficient allies to shelter and protect them. Perhaps they rob from the rich and give to the poor.

Character creation

Characters should have some connection to each other. This should be discussed with fellow players. Campaign default is for cooperative play; the extent of permissable rivalry or hostility should be decided in Session Zero.

Characters should be designed as Heroic High Chivalric characters; as per the core rulebook. Players may roll for certain factors if they do not want to accept a default or pay CP points for them.

Characters who cannot speak English will be at a distinct disadvantage, though may find some people who can speak Latin or French. The ability to read and speak Latin is a requirement for Christian priests, and educated people may also read and speak it. French is the courtly language, and most nobles will speak it. Hebrew is spoken in Jewish communities. Cymraeg (Welsh), Gaelic, Kernewec (Cornish) and Norse are spoken in parts of Britain, and Gaeilge in Ireland, but these are uncommon in the campaign area. Other languages are rare.

Most character types are acceptable except the following:

  • Characters must be human. Traits such as fae blood are acceptable.
  • Avoid legitimate or acknowledged offspring of royalty, as the campaign plays out against a backgrop of rivalry for the English crown. Offspring of high nobility such as dukes or earls may also be problematic outside a High Politics game. 
  • The priestly vocation of Friar is not available. The first order of Friars, the Carmelites, though founded in 1155, did not enter England until 1240. The other orders of friars were founded in the early 13th century, after this campaign is set. The closest thing to a Friar is a Canon Regular - a Priest who lives in a community of priests but serves the common folk outside the priestly community.
  • Monks and nuns will find it easier to take part in the campaign if they belong to a lax Benedictine house rather than one of the reform orders such as Cistercians or Gilbertines, which are much stricter about enforcing the monastic code.
  • Druids and Elementalists are not available as a vocation.
  • Shamans and witches might represent hedge wizards or cunning-folk who pay lip service to Christianity, or pagans. Paganism did not survive to this period in any meaningful form in England, but still existed in the upper Baltic and co-existed with Christianity in Iceland.
  • Religious magi who seek to better their souls may consider the Unknown priestly mage vocation.
  • Some discretion is advised for Magi. Don't flaunt it, even if you got it. There are no active witch-hunts or anti-heretical campaigns during this period, but the Church is powerful and deeply suspicious of magick, especially magick perceived as originating from spirits or demons (whether it actually does so or not), and common folk are fearful of overt magick. Scholarly magi who have learnt their craft in Europe will probably know Latin, but would find Arabic or Greek more useful as far more grimoires are written these languages than Latin. Character background should include reasons why a character speaks these  languages (time spent in Muslim or Byzantine lands, or a mentor who has spent time there, for instance). 

Players should consider their characters' degree of freedom to act independently of any social organisations they may belong to, and find ways they may circumvent restrictions when needed. Serfs (whose ability to leave their lord's land is restricted) and monastic characters, including members of fighting orders, will have most restrictions on their ability to operate outside their commitments. Outlaws have the most freedom, but their lives are perilous and every authority is against them.

Medieval attitudes and campaign play

You can play characters of any ethnicity, religion, sexuality or gender you want. The core rulebook addresses characters from Europe, the Middle East and Northern, Eastern and Western Africa, the three Abrahamic faiths and paganism. All character backgrounds should explain how the character came to be in the campaign area of North-Central England and know the other player characters. Player characters should accept each other, unless players specifically and voluntarily agree any differences may form acceptable tension between their characters and are clear about the limits.

Most, but not all, NPCs will be of English, Anglo-Danish, or Norman origin, but as Fitzstephen noted, merchants from "every nation under heaven" are found in Unknown. Player characters who are obviously foreign may arouse curiosity outside ports and major trading towns, but will not be treated with more suspicion than any other stranger. As noted above, characters who do not speak English will be at a disadvantage.

Most people are Christian, even if uneducated people are pretty ignorant of Christian theology. Prejudice against non-Christians does exist in the background of the campaign, and it will remain in the background rather than the foreground. A wave of anti-Semitic riots in early 1190, culminating in deaths of hundreds of Jews in York in March 1190, has increased official and common sympathy for Jews. John Marshal, brother of the famous knight Sir William Marshal, was stripped of the office of Sheriff of Yorkshire for failing to protect York's Jews from the mob. While Crusaders may have left for the Holy Land to fight Muslims, many have realised that the Europeans who have lived alongside Muslims in the Crusader states for nearly 100 years do not share these prejudices, and Muslims, Jews and Christians live together as they do in Andalusia and Sicily. Many Crusaders disapproved of King Richard's execution 2,000 Muslim prisoners of the Acre garrison at the Unknown

King Richard's mother, Unknown, Queen-Consort of England, has defined a new paradigm for noble women, and has helped popularise Occitanian ideas of chivalry and courtly love. In her younger days she accompanied her first husband on Crusade, where she and her companions dressed in armour in imitation of Amazons. Her daughter Marie, Countess of Champagne (and currently its regent) has created Courts of Love, where women try lovers for supposed offences against love.

Common women run businesses and work lands. Noblewomen administer estates and defend castles. Fighting women are uncommon but are known - especially to Crusaders, for Arab commentators were surprised by the armed and armoured women fighting in Crusader ranks at the Unknown. Players with female characters may choose female skills if they wish, but are not required to do so. Women may hold knightly estates as widows or heiresses, though a guardian may be appointed by a feudal overlord.

Any form of romance is allowed in the campaign, though we will fade to black for any sexual activity. The Church frowns on all forms of sex outside marriage and sex for pleasure. Nevertheless, Church strictures are often broken discretely, especially by the lower classes, and may be flaunted by the powerful. Henry II and the noblewoman Rosamund Clifford had a notable sexual affair lasting many years, and Henry had a number of relationships with lower-class women. Men and women of similar social classes are often very demonstrative of platonic affection for friends of their own sex, and may even share beds with them, as King Richard did with King Philip when they were younger; same-sex romances may be easier to hide than illicit heterosexual romances.

The Church recognises intersex people, but expects them to choose one of the two traditional sexes and stick to it. Le Roman de Silence, an epic poem written in the early 13th century, discusses a number of gender roles and gender identities, though the Church regards moving outside one's assigned gender role as sinful. However, nudity is rare outside bath-houses, and clothing for both common men and women is generally loose, making it easier to hide one's assigned gender, though noble fashions have recently moved to more figure-hugging clothing.

Inspirational viewing or reading

You don't have to, but if you want to...

TV & Films

Robin of Sherwood - 1980s British TV series featuring Michael Praed (and later Jason Connery) as Robin Hood with pagan inclinations.
Patrick Bergin's Robin Hood - 1990 British film attempting a more historical Robin Hood.
The Lion in Winter - 1968 film featuring Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Antony Ho;pkins as Richard the Lionheart, set in 1183 - about 10 years before the start of this campaign.
Kingdom of Heaven - 2005 film featuring Liam Neeson, Eva Green and Orlando Bloom. Despite its odd changes to the characters of Balian d'Ibelin and Guy de Lusignan, it gives a reasonable idea of events leading up to the Unknown, including the Unknown.

Novels

Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott's romance isn't terribly good history, but is set in the time and place of the campaign, and it's a classic.
The Queen's Man - One of Sharon Kay Penman's better books features an agent of Eleanor of Aquitaine investigating the dissappearance of King Richard in January 1193, the very time this campaign starts.
Crowner John series - Bernard Knight's excellent stories about the investigations of one of the first royal coroners are set in Devon from 1194 to 1196.

History

England under the Norman and Angevin Kings - Robert Bartlett's masterly look at the period is chunky, very readable and stuffed with colourful facts about politics, society and the medieval worldview.
England Without Richard - JT Appleby's year-by-year look at events in England in the reign of Richard is a little dated, but so detailed I should probably mark it with spoiler warnings.

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