My Pendragon Appendix N
Arthurian Inspiration
(A version of this post originally appeared in part on my old blog, The RPG Corner, in 2011.)
When I first started running Pendragon in a serious way back in 2006, I found myself seriously out of my depth. My comprehension of Arthurian literature and folklore and my understanding of medieval history proved patchier than I anticipated. So I hit the books, and the movies, and created a sort of ersatz Appendix N of my very own.
We all “know” the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the forthcoming Pendragon Starter Set does a great job (if I do say so myself) of introducing you to how the game treats the legends and your role therein as players, but if you’d like to do some deep dives like I did, lo those many years ago, here are some of my recommendations:
Books
Le Morte d'Arthur: When most people think of the Arthurian myth, it is the version laid down by a mercenary knight at the tail-end of the age of chivalry they're thinking of. Malory was the first great collator of the saga, weaving together medieval sources from across Europe to form a coherent narrative arc—and not coincidentally, this is the model Pendragon uses as well.
There are a million different versions of LMDA out there in a variety of modernizations. For a thoroughly-modern rendering of the language, I like Dorsey Armstrong’s version (though I’m not as much of a fan of the weird shape of the physical book…). Greg Stafford’s preferred version was the two-volume Penguin paperback, which strikes a nice balance between archaic diction and readability.
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck. T. H. White gets a lot of attention, and deservedly so, but his take on Arthur can be a bit idiosyncratic for gaming-inspiration purposes. For a modern literary treatment of the mythology, this is my favorite collection, sadly never completed.
The Arthurian Companion by Phyllis Ann Karr. Absolutely indispensable. An encyclopedia of people, places, and things exhaustively compiled from the full range of available medieval sources.
Castles by Alan Lee. In some ways this was where it all started. I received this book as a gift (birthday? Christmas?) during the height of my childhood interest in all things medieval (about age 11-12). I still reference Lee's gorgeously evocative watercolors for inspiration, and the well-written "thumbnail myths" that accompany them (scribed by David Day) have provided both direct and indirect material for some of my past scenarios.
A Year in a Castle by Rachel Coombs. This is a representative entry for children's books in general. Yes, kid's books, the greatest friend for the harried GM ever invented. Particularly books on history, mythology, and other fun subjects. The big quarto or folio-sized, full-color jobbies with lots of pretty pictures are the way to go: like the veritable mother bird preparing to feed her nestlings, flip through their pages and gobble up the visual inspiration for later regurgitation at the game table.
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. The 14th-century was arguably the Middle Ages at their worst, and Tuchman paints a brilliant picture of church corruption, mercenary knights, plague, excess, war, famine, and peasant revolts. Indispensable for depicting the darker side of chivalry and the Arthurian cycle, especially during the Grail Quest and Twilight Periods.
Movies
Excalibur (1981): Movies were my real introduction to the wonder of Arthur and the Middle Ages. I saw a TV-edited version of Excalibur when I was about 9 years old and it rocked my world. This movie is still my touchstone for what an epic Pendragon campaign should feel like; Nicol Williamson's Merlin will never be bettered in my opinion.
"Come father, let us embrace at last!"
The Lion in Winter (1968): Great sets, great costumes (especially for the time it was made), absolutely indispensable for court politics and the true heart of Pendragon: the rack of human relationships.
"Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!" "Let's strike a flint and see."
Knightriders (1981): An under-appreciated entry in George Romero's oeuvre, despite its modern setting this movie is the best treatment I've yet seen of the clash between chivalric ideals and hard reality. Plus, if you want a treatment of Merlin-as-hippy as an alternative to Nicol Williamson's take, look no further. (Oh, and my wife thinks Tom Savini is sex on toast in this film, for what it's worth.)
"No, it's just getting too tough. It's tough to live by the code. I mean, it's real hard to live for something that you believe in. People try it and then they get tired of it, like they get tired of their...diets. Or exercise. Or their marriage. Or their kids, or their job, or themselves...or they get tired of their God."
Perceval le Gallois (1978): I feel like this movie comes closest to recreating the experience of what it must have been like listening to Chretien de Troyes recite his latest romance sometime in the High Middle Ages. I mean, for one thing it’s in French. (Though they didn’t go all the way and shoot it using Middle French, the cowards.) The set design is enchanting, looking like the illicit offspring of a medieval manuscript and Passion Play; the “look” of 6th edition Pendragon owes much to my love of this movie. And this is arguably the most faithful adaptation of the Arthurian romances ever committed to celluloid.
“Cursed is he who in fine weather waits for finer weather still.”
The Green Knight (2021): In stark counterpoint, we have this wonderful fever dream of an Arthurian movie that often runs roughshod over the source material, but all in service of giving us one of the best movies ever made in the genre. The fact that the name of Sir Gawain(e) is spelled and pronounced differently throughout the film speaks to one of David Lowery’s core themes: these stories are always changing, yet they remain fundamentally the same. This is a key to understanding how to successfully run Pendragon. Watch this movie and meditate on that thought as you do. (This movie is also my visual reference for the Downfall era as much as A Distant Mirror gives me the historical grounding.)
“Green is what is left when ardor fades, when passion dies—when we die, too.”
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). The most obscure entry on the list by a mile, apparently this was a movie released by some nobody British comedy troupe back in the 70s. Mainly useful for its fantastic attention to detail in sets and costumes and the apt depictions of the bloody consequences of critically-inspired Passions and what happens when every knight in your party fails their Valorous rolls.
"We'll not risk another frontal assault—that rabbit's dynamite!"
