Land of Giants by DivineCoffeeBinge

Introduction

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

You want to play Arthur Meets Beowulf? You can do that. Land of Giants is already looking pretty fuckin' awesome. The book can be used in one of two ways - either to allow Arthurian Knights to travel to the lands of Thule and have awesome adventures there, or to create a Northmen-centric campaign full of Northmen doing awesome Northmen things (and who knows, maybe raiding into Britain every so often...). There are handouts in the back of the book called "Foreigner's Knowledge of Thule" and "A Foreigner's Map of Thule," detailing what foreigners might know about this strange land... some of which is patently false, by the way. Different, more informative handouts are available for the natives. Already I'm liking this book and its willingness to stretch the boundaries of what Pendragon can and cannot be; after the focus of the core book this is definitely refreshing.

The introduction cautions us that, by default, we won't actually be seeing Beowulf much; he's there as the ideal to attain, not usually as someone you pal around with. Why?


Holy shit, is this really a Pendragon supplement? After the core book's "You won't complete this adventure, that's Lancelot's job" this is remarkably refreshing.

(really, most of the supplements do this - they are much, much less focused than Pendragon, and really broaden the game's scope, as a good supplement - IMHO - should. I just wasn't expecting this much respect for player agency right out of the gate.)

There is a lengthy glossary and pronunciation guide, which I will larely ignore because who the fuck wants to read about a glossary. I do love this entry, though:


Our first chapter is entitled The Perilous North Sea . See, while Land of Giants is a Thule-centric book, "knights from more civilized lands" still go there on occasion, and the best way to do it is by boat. That's what this chapter is about - getting there by boat and all of the ways that the water hates you and wants you to die.

There's a lot of discussion about getting a ship, how the ship sails, et cetera, which is a little dull, but I wanted to point out this bit:


That bit there about a "Personality Dispute?" Yeah, that actually was in the core book and I just never noticed. Seriously, I read that and thought "What, is this referring to an older edition?" I knew you could have two characters try and talk one another into something via an opposed Trait roll but I never knew it had a name.

I first started playing Pendragon in 1992. And I just noticed this now.

Then we get to the section on stuff that can happen while at sea, and I would like to note that there is one entry in that table which fills me with glee: "Polar Ice and Polar Bears." If the dice gods smile on you (or hate you, depending) you can run into ice floes that you have to slow down to weave through and then sometimes one of those floes has a fuckin' polar bear on it Jesus why did I never read this book before.

Also there might be a giant magic whale that tries to swallow your entire ship. If you ever wanted to know what would happen if Sir Lancelot was a character in Moby Dick, have I got a game for you!

I am significantly more excited about this project now. Next time I'll delve into The History of Thule , which promises to be interesting.

A note: There are actually two Saxon-centric Pendragon books; Green Knight Publishing put together a book titled simply Saxons! . I find it inferior in some ways, in that it focuses almost entirely on those Saxons found in Britain; it's a further narrowing of the game's scope when the scope is pretty focused already, and I prefer the books that broaden the game's horizons a bit more. That's a matter of taste, though, more than anything; Saxons! does go into more detail in some ways, especially those related to Saxon culture and specifically the culture of the Saxons still living in Britain, and is a fine book in its own right.

But this one has polar bears so it wins.



One final note: it is immensely gratifying to me to read about people who've come to this game because they read me rambling about it. Seriously, I hope you have even a tenth of the fun I've had playing Pendragon over the years. If you have questions and you don't want to clutter the thread with 'em, I have PMs, and believe you me I'll talk about Pendragon for ages.

History of Thule

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

Now where was I? Oh, right - the History of Thule chapter.

This is mostly just a really big bulleted list, which I will summarize; I will undoubtedly miss some stuff, but just think of that as a good reason to buy the book yourselves. A nice note I rather liked:


Again, Land of Giants' insistence on "Look, if you want you can just say 'screw it' and do what you want" is really refreshing to me. One of my biggest complaints about Pendragon is that in trying to evoke the Arthurian canon it goes a step to far and becomes beholden to it; it's really nice to see the expansions try and get away from that a bit.

Now, the Prehistory entries are pretty sparse; boats first began to see use in Thule around 6000 BC, for instance. Okay, sure. It's the next section, Age of Giants , that starts off with a bang:


So while we know that man first came to Thule many thousands of years prior, the Northmen would peg their beginnings to roughly 4000 BC.


Apropos of nothing, I love the comparison of giants to dinosaurs. Fuck your scientific accuracy, I'm picturing Surtur as a T-Rex who is also on fire and that is awesome.

Much of early history is basically Norse mythology, which if you don't know anything about it, get to reading. In the early years of the first century AD, the Northmen begin to forge trade links with the Romans.


Huh. Neat. Apparently this dude's kingdom lasts less than a century before a guy named Heremod shows up to wreck the party.


The kingdom of Denmark basically falls to shit after a while, and when the Roman Empire collapses the loss of trade makes things worse. Now there's a mess of independent clans and mini-kingdoms everywhere, and a bunch of kings rise and fall and I'm not typing all that out. According to this timeline, Arthur is born in 492; Beowulf is born in 499. Take that, old man! The Danes kick the Angles and Jutes out of Denmark and they flee to Britain; there are more coups and dead kings and betrayals.


The Battle of Badon Hill, the final defeat of the Saxons in Britain, occurs in 518; Beowulf slays Grendel in 520.


Nobody likes the Franks. Still, Dayraven is a kickass name. Also, Alternate History Pendragon where Beowulf shows up to declare himself King of Kent and serves as a rallying point for British Saxons to regain strength, leading to a constant state of low-grade warfare and skirmishes with King Arthur, would be fucking great .


Imagine this shit going down with Lancelot and Gawaine in the thick of it holy shit who could handle that much

There is a lot more history. Alliances are formed and broken, peace is brokered and then broken, battles are fought, people die. Ain't no Pax Arthuriana here. The Battle of Camlann is set at 565; Beowulf's adventure of the Barrow-Dragon and his subsequent death happen in 567. The overlap between the two is really impressive.


Seriously, I know I skimmed a lot... but the History chapter is very much several pages of "dudes with funny names kill each other. Then try try not killing each other for a while, but they get sick of it and go back to killing each other." This should probably be indicative of the kind of game we're gonna see here in this book.

Next time: The Wild Northern Lands , the geography and nations chapter.

The Wild Northern Land

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

This is so awesome that it deserves more posting. Ergo:



Let's talk The Wild Northern Land . This is the overview chapter; more detailed entries for most everything are found in a later chapter.


Nicely detailed and ambiguous enough to be interesting, I like it!

There are mountains, there are highlands, there are forests and marshes and waterways. Some interesting excerpts:





I just thought each of those was kinda neat for one reason or another. Still, while geography is neat and all, let's talk about the political landscape.

For the most part, Northern politics are tribal politics; you belong to a tribe, your tribe has a chief, and maybe you even call him King if he's pretentious. Your tribe runs a chunk of land, which is usually named after you; the Geats live in Gautland, the Cwenas live in Swenaland, and the Svear live in Svitjod, which apparently is named after them somehow Northern languages are weird.

That said, larger kingdoms do exist - Denmark consists of many small island tribes, each of which owes allegiance to King Hrothgar. There are five great kingdoms in Pendragon's Thule:

• Denmark: Zealand, Jutland, North Jutland, Fyn, Lolland, Falster and Skane
• Svitjod: Uppmanland, Sodermanland, Gastrickland, Gotland, Vastmanland, Oland and Aland
• Gautjod: West Gautland, East Gautland after 534
• Ostland: Thelamark, Ranrike and Heathomark
• Vestland: Hordaland and Rogaland

What follows is an alphabetical list of thumbnail descriptions of lands and kingdoms, much like Pendragon's The Lands chapter. As I did there, instead of summarizing everything I'll just pick out some of the entries that jump out at me as being interesting:

"Aland was the first Cimbri island to fall to the Svear. Unable to oppose their Svear overlords directly, the Alanders take petty revenge by skimping on tribute." They have a listed navy of "one war-canoe." Sucks to be Aland.

Cwenaland is "ruled by women who may be either fighters or shamans, sometimes both."

Frisia is kinda cool: "Frisia is a semi-independent kingdom. It was around A.D. 138 that the Frisians bound themselves, more or less willingly, to the Romans as protection from Celtic and Germanic tribes, and despite a number of revolts, Frisia was still governed by Roman officials when the Franks took over the Imperial government. The current ruler of Frisia, Theudobert, is the son of a Frankish lord and a Saxon princess. His retinue includes some of the greatest Saxon and Frankish champions in the North (including Dayraven, from A.D. 510 to 521). Frisia is covered with many artificial mounds and dikes, and Theudobert is often heard to claim: "The Gods made middle-earth, but Frisians made the land"."

"Gotland is ruled by free men, mostly traders who profit from the long-distance exchange of goods, but also rich bonder. There is no single ruler - all important
issues are decided at the Thing. Despite the decline in trading, following the collapse of the Roman empire more than a century ago, this island has maintained relations with people all around the East Sea, and with Frisia and beyond. There are still many goods being traded by Gotland traders: furs and pelts, iron, weapons, ornaments and exotic goods are exchanged with the Northman, Cwenas, Franks, Frisians and different tribes of Finnar." Democracy? In my Pendragon?!?

"Several Cimbrian tribes have hidden deep inside the conifer woods of the Highlands and are living as tiny independent "kingdoms", giving the region the name Smaland {Small Lands). The most famous of these small lands are: Tjust {north-east), Njudung {central), More {south-east) and Finnveden {west). Once these kingdoms were larger and more influential, but with the rising power of Denmark, Svitjod, Gautjod and, most importantly, the arrival of the Eruli of Varend, they have been forced to withdraw into the rough hills and woods. Most Northmen have no idea who runs the tribes, nor even how many there are!"

The book does a fine job at playing up the idea of tension between many of these regions and tribes; the Svear are apparently quite expansionist, for example, and regions between them and... most anyone else are described as tense and harried. King Wald of Thelamark has converted his aristocracy to Christianity, though his karls remain Odinic (Odinic = Wotanic, in essence).

The contrast between this and the base book couldn't be sharper; while Pendragon's Britain is described as largely at peace, given the game's default setting of the apex of Arthur's reign, Thule is described as a simmering pot about to boil over with war. In Britain, knights are assumed to be heading out to Adventure, sometimes dealing with mortals but often with strange monsters and places; in Thule, characters are assumed to be heading out to kill other Northmen. And maybe some giants, too, if they're up to it, but mostly Northmen. Pendragon 4th edition assumes a setting where the greatest of Arthur's wars are behind him - Land of Giants assumes a setting where the greatest wars are yet to come.

The People of Thule

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

Let's talk about The People of Thule . This is where the interesting stuff happens.

First up, let's talk about social classes, which are a little different than the ones you find in Pendragon: On the top of the ladder are Kings. Kingship is a relatively new development in Thule, and while any tribal chieftain can call himself a King (in Pendragon terms they'd be classed as Pennaths), there are only a few K9ings in the Arthurian sense - rulers over vast swaths of peoples and lands.

A guy gets to be King through three forces - Inheritance, Election, and/or Force. For Inheritance, a potential King must be of noble blood (an ethling ). Descent from the prior King helps. Descent from Wotan is even better. Election is a thing one does not see in Arthurian Britain; the Northmen realize that a King is only as powerful as the lords ( jarls ) who will support him, so if the King can't get elected by the jarls, why bother making him King in the first place? And lastly there's Force: if either of the prior two criteria are not met, well, overwhelming military force solves a lot of problems.

It is also noted that, while rare, kingship in Thule may be held by multiple people simultaneously; "Hrothgar and his brother Halga rule together, dividing responsibilities by function, rather than geography." Basically 'when it comes to war I'm king, when it comes to peace and diplomacy it's all you, bro.'

Beneath the Kings are the Ethlings - the aristocracy. In the game's setting, the ethlings are in the middle of making the transition between 'powerful chieftains' and 'hereditary aristocracy;' the implication is that in a few decades they'll look an awful lot like the nobles we've met in Pendragon already, but they're not quite there yet.

A prince or a chieftain is a jarl, and jarls are a subsection of the ethlings; though not explicitly spelled out here, there's a sense that being a jarl involves skill at warfare rather than just 'being born noble.'

The free peasantry, beneath the ethlings on the social ladder, are the karls . If you think you're going to confuse karl and jarl a lot, well, join the club. "All have protection under the law, the right to carry weapons, and a say in local politics." Some karls live on their own land, and some hold it in exchange for service to a jarl. Craftsmen of all stripes fit in this category.

Finally there are the thralls , or slaves. Their life sucks.

Land of Giants goes on to explain how it's not just the nobility in transition at this point - it's the entirety of Northern society. Changing from tribal to feudal, many long-held ways of life are in flux; in some areas the society is strictly tribal in nature, cleaving fast to the old ways, while other regions are adopting feudal customs with an alarming speed. Though it's never expressly suggested as such, this tribal/feudal dynamic could be a wonderful source of plot hooks and dramatic tension as players decide to back one side or another in the frequent conflicts these changes provoke...

There are also, in certain areas, "Free Farmers" - settlement has expanded inland from some of the densely populated coasts faster than society can really follow. "Karls rule the valleys and alpine meadows as farmers and herders. The farmstead ( igaard ) replaces the great-hall, and a farmer with large land-holdings (a bonde ) holds as much prestige as a jarl, at least in the eyes of fellow "bonder"."

Now, on to some of the customs of the North. The felag or "fellowship" is a much more common occurrence in the North; part-owners of a ship might form one, or a band of warriors, or even fellow craftsmen might form one as a proto-guild. This is basically an excuse to make Loyalty (group) passions.

The Thing is a gathering and then some; it's important to all the karls and absolutely essential to free farmer society. It's kind of a combination of social event, trade fair, court date, Super Bowl, and - in free farmer societies - Congress. It's a feast and a tournament all in one, with even more stuff tacked on.

Wergild is a relatively new concept in the North; instead of sticking with the whole "an eye for an eye" response to murder, it is permissible to pay the 'blood price' to a slain person's family and erase the wrongdoing. This can range from six pounds of silver for a humble karl to 500 pounds of gold for a prosperous jarl. Thralls have no wergild price, because they are property, not people; an owner can, however, seek recompense of roughly equal value to an ox - 180 pence - for 'stolen property.'

Wyrd and Ofermod have together shaped the warrior mindset in Thule. Wyrd means fate - specifically, the certain fate of a transient life. Everybody dies. Even the Gods are not immune to Wyrd; they are fated to die at Ragnarok. So, the Northman reasons, it's probably best to live well and die gloriously and then at least in story and song a part of me will live on. Ofermod would most readily - if not precisely - be translated as "overconfidence;" in Pendragon Trait terms, Recklessness. It is not just accepted but encouraged. Ofermod is what lets you charge blindly into eternal damnation because you think you can win (if you don't mind my swiping a HoL skill name...).

Now, wealth in Thule is handled slightly differently than in some parts of the world. Like everyplace else in the Pendragon setting, landed wealth is the only 'real' wealth worth speaking of, but in the North, weak trade links and lack of monetary exchange - no one mints coins in Thule - shift them away from a more traditional economy and into a gift economy .


The key difference here is that in Arthurian Britain, one receives wealth for services. Perform well in battle, get spoils of war. Impress your Lord, get granted a Manor. And so on.

In Thule, however, you get the wealth in advance of service; Kings and jarls give their retainers lavish gifts and lands in the expectation that when it is time for war, the retainers will be there.

"Every member of Northman society engages in reciprocal generosity, not just the ethlings. Gifts are given for friendship and for thanks - for almost any reason - but gift-giving is never frivolous. Often, accepting a gift is more difficult than giving one, because it creates an obligation to repay with an even greater gift. To Northmen, the phrase "I am in your debt" has greater meaning than it does to us. Material wealth (gold and gems) forms just one facet of gift-giving. Food, lodging, arms and armor, horses, land, animal hides, ancient heirlooms, slaves, brides, military service, and the glory garnered from this wealth are all part of the gift-economy."

That said, there is some 'conventional' commerce in Thule, and matters can be simplified by paring things down to the listed costs in Librum in Pendragon.

There follows a list of some of the changes one might see in the usual Pendragon equipment list (there are no inns in Thule; armor heavier than Norman Chain is not made locally, though it could be imported at great expense; chargers are rare and cost more, et cetera) and goings-on (the contests held at the Thing are not strictly a tournament in the Arthurian sense, for instance).

Next time I'll get to the Worship chapter, and how Thule's Odinism differs from Arthurian Wotanism and also what the hell Christianity is doing in Thule, and so on.

Worship

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

So - Worship in Arthurian Scandanavia. Land of Giants is quite clear about how this is all very much anachronistic; different regions had different faiths and a coherent mythology didn't spring up for another 500 years, but that's less easily played, so you get a more simplified and unified set of belief systems. There are three main faiths:


So, let's start off with Odinism :


I'm not going to go into too much detail on Odinism because you should know about Norse Mythology by now. Because it's awesome. If you don't, here, have a Wikipedia page . I will, however, talk about the main Odinist cults - sort of subdivisions of the faith that focus on different deities.

There is, of course, the Cult of Odin . Odin is "the god of warfare, magic, and death. His followers include jarls and warriors, who exchange loyalty for victory in battle." These are the dudes you think of when you think of northern warriors; they don't bother with the whole 'prayer and praise' thing, because Odin doesn't give a shit about those. He cares about deeds . So go kill things in battle and die well.

Then you've got the Cult of Freya :


The priesthood of Freya has intertwined almost completely with the nobility of the Svear, so that Svitjod could be said to have her cult as a state religion; the impression I'm starting to get here is that their focus on wealth basically makes them the Odinist version of Prosperity Doctrine followers, which is kinda funny for a book written in 1996.

The Cult of Thor is basically the cult of the common man; pretty much all his dudes are common people, the people that Arthurian knights probably won't encounter - farmers and craftsmen, the people who know that Thor will take care of them.

Neat detail:


There is one other variety of Odinist faith that deserves discussion: Eruli Odinism . The Eruli are cultural Cimbri (we'll explore the different cultures and ethnicities soon, promise) but they are Odinist rather than Heathen; they have blended some of the most brutal aspects of both faiths. They meld Heathen cruelty with Odinist battle-lust; many of the tribe's warriors are berserkers, and human sacrifice is still practiced. The Eruli are not nice people.

So, next up: Heathenism .


Essentially, think animist shamans with a healthy patina of New Age thinking... and a bit of old age nastiness. There are two varieties of Heathenism to be discussed further; Cimbrian Heathenism is the slightly more violent variety, with human sacrifice being quite common, plus this gem:


Cultural prescriptivism. Kinda neat, that.

Then there's Finn Heathenism , practiced by the Skridfinnar. They're a much more pastoral bunch, and they have some awesome descriptors for their shamans:


Finally there is Christianity , about which Land of Giants says, basically, "go read Pendragon." It is completely ahistorical; "It has been included in Land of Giants only to account for certain moral references in Beowulf." There is no formal Church hierarchy in the North.

Next time: Northern Character Generation , where we make Northmen, not knights.

Northern Character Creation

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

I didn't abandon this, I'm just lazy. Shut up.

Welcome to Northern Character Creation . The chapter helpfully starts off by informing us that knights from Britain could come to Thule for adventure; in such cases, use the normal Pendragon character creation. This section is not for them. This section is for making natives of Thule.

Northerners get their own character sheet, to reflect some of the differences between themselves and knights; for one thing, they lack heraldric devices and squires, and horses play a much lesser role in their exploits, so those sections of the sheet are gone. Other sections, such as a tally for Boasting Contests (to replace the tally for career Jousts) take their place.

Other than that, creating a character works the same way as it does in Pendragon, except the tables you roll on are different. The book definitely doesn't want you playing too fast and loose, though:


Obviously, the Father's Class tables are vastly different, allowing you to play as the son of a Scop, a Hall-Thane, a Berserk, et cetera. Son Number is rolled on 1d6; however, the book notes that primogeniture is the exception in Thule, not the rule; positions of importance are typically elected or appointed, so being the first son of a chieftain doesn't make you the chieftain-in-waiting.

Religious Virtues are also vastly expanded; many individual cults are predominant in one area or another. If your character is from these regions he may choose to be a general Odinist, or he may choose to follow a specific deity, which alters his religious virtues as follows:


This also adjusts your Religious Bonus:


As usual, you then age up until you qualify for a career class, from Hall-Thane to Trader to Hunter.

It is also noted here that Skridfinnar do not have horses. They get domesticated reindeer mounts instead. Okay, that's kinda awesome.

Magician Character creation follows; see the Pendragon rules, but the Gods are different. Big deal.

Now then, let's finally talk about Cultures.

First up we get the Northmen . These guys are the largest ethnic group in Thule, and they give no fucks.


Northman. No fucks given.

Their beginning skills are geared towards boating, swimming, and killing fools; their cultural weapon is the Greataxe. They get the same +3 SIZ, -3 DEX, +3 STR
as Saxons in Britain.

Next up are the Cimbri , which the book tells us is the least realistic of the various cultures presented within.



Cimbri tribeswoman. Possibly one of the 'warrior-women of Cwenaland,' in which case she gives plenty of fucks; they have a Directed Trait of Lustful (Northmen). SEE WHAT I DID THERE HAW HAW

The Cimbri are basically the Northern equivalent of the Picts in Pendragon - the original residents of an area who are slowly dying out/being assimilated into a broader, more inclusive culture. They are isolationist in nature, content to keep to the old ways in peace. They get +1 STR, +2 CON; their cultural divisions are less sharp, so their starting skills include more emphasis on folkways and other traditionally 'peasant-y' things. Their cultural weapon is the Spear.

Finally there is the Skridfinnar , Thule's equivalent of modern-day Lapps. They are nomadic hunters and reindeer-herders, and can be hard to integrate into a Beowulf-style campaign, the book tells us. Their stat modifiers are -4 SIZ, +3DEX, +4 CON, making them so short that they apparently get no artwork.


Skridfinnar use reindeer instead of horses, and their skills have plenty of emphasis on skills that a Briton would call 'unknightly;' they have virtually no class distinctions in their society. They also use skis, which in snowy terrain add +2 to one's Movement Speed but require DEX rolls in perilous circumstances; no skill covers these. Their cultural weapon is the Spear.

Next time: The Map of Thule .

Map of Thule

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

The Map of Thule is a lot like the earlier section on geography (The Wild Northern Lands), except that it goes into more geographical detail and less political detail. This is key for magicians, who will find all kinds of useful magic-boosting sites, and buried within are some interesting hooks.

The entries are set up as follows:

Name of Place (Grid Location - ? indicates movable or unknown site): [ Modern name ] A brief explanation of the place. Ruler : the lord of the place, if any. Vassal of : person to whom the ruler answers.

So, for example:

Blue Mountain (C-4): [ Blakollen ] On Midsummer's Night, many horrible and monstrous beings - giants and trolls foremost - meet for a Troll-Thing, where they discuss matters of evil. Life Force is strong here (Ambient 5d20, +3d20 to Summon Faerie Creature).

So we learn things like the existence of a large stone rising from the tundra called Akko; "Local Skridfinnar call it The Bring-Luck Stone of Akko, after the properties of local Life Force (Ambient 4d20, Blessing 3d20, Curse 3d20). Those who leave an offering will have one wish come true (usually it brings reindeer to a hunter). If someone tries to deceive it, the stone causes bad luck for a day [-5 to all rolls]." We also learn, more succinctly, that at Bergtagen "A troll-hag who owns a magical black cow lives nearby." That's all we learn; we know nothing about what makes the black cow magical. Who cares, right? Magic cow.

It's a neat section full of interesting little fiddly bits of folklore that suffers from inconsistency of detail. For instance, compare the above magic cow with this entry:


So basically, it's kind of a crapshoot whether you get a fleshed-out concept or the barest thumbnail sketch. Still, even the thumbnail sketches are evocative and interesting (usually; there are a couple entries like " Drage-fjeld (D-3): A dragon ravages the area" and that's the entire fucking entry), and provide interesting adventure fodder... at least, if you like adventures about killing trolls, giants, or sometimes trolls and giants.

I'm not going to copy and paste the whole thing or even a selection because then it's just a list of stuff and that's boring to read. Instead I'll leave you with my favorite:


The next section is Lords of the North , the "notable NPCs" section. Complete character sheets are provided for Beowulf; Beowulf's childhood rival Breca (intended as a foil for PCs, like Brus sans Pitie in the Pendragon book); Dayraven (his magic sword Nailing can, once per day, strike for max damage); King Hrothgar; Halga the war-leader; the young and still untried Geatish King Hygelac ("He is not particularly adept at anything but boating and swimming, two skills necessary for a pirate-king" - hah); Ingeld, Prince of the Heathobards; Svear prince and priest of Freya, Onela; the hero/demigod Weland, the world's greatest smith; and Widsith Far-Wanderer, the most renowned of all Thule's scops.

There is also a section on Nordic monsters, like the Nidagrisur (spirits of newborn children left to die in the wildnerness, they lie and deceive travelers) and the Stallo (a kind of turf golem created by Heathen shamans).

Next time I'll talk about the two adventures in Land of Giants, ones you may have heard of before - The Adventure of Hrothgar's Hall (aka "the tale of Grendel and his dam") and The Adventure of the Barrow-Dragon . These two great tales of Beowulf are left for characters to participate in and possibly even complete themselves, which is kind of a big deal... except if you've ever read Beowulf then you already know how the stories go. Heh.

Adventures

posted by DivineCoffeeBinge Original SA post

Hey, remember when I was doing this?



Yeah, me either. But I'll fake it.

Land of Giants includes two adventures, both of which are taken pretty well directly from Beowulf . The difference is that they're set up so that the PCs can be the heroes of the adventure, rather than sitting back and waiting for Beowulf to show them all how it's done.

I've beaten this drum before, I know - but I can't help but contrast this approach to the adventures with the Scenario chapter in the Pendragon core book; as I mentioned before , several of those scenarios include things like "encounter a cool thing that you can't do anything about because it's destined to be dealt with by Galahad or Lancelot or someone, you know, better than you." Which is very Arthurian and fits in nicely with Greg Stafford's whole faithfulness to the canon schtick - but isn't exactly a ball to play, many times. Chris Hind and I are apparently on a similar wavelength, since in writing Land of Giants he tossed that approach right out the fuckin' window.

So the first adventure is The Adventure of Hrothgar's Hall , and it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. The introduction does tell us that "To succeed (probably after multiple attempts) the heroes should be proficient at Swimming, Grapple, and blunt weapon attacks" - these are three things that I have never made any of my Pendragon characters excel at, so clearly your run-of-the-mill knights from Britain who're sightseeing will have a trickier time of things, but hey, them's the breaks.

Let's have some background.

You forgot how much date-rape was in Beowulf , didn't you? Anyways, the tale proceeds pretty much the same way it does in the story, and I'm not going to go through all the details because seriously, go read Beowulf (I found Seamus Heany's translation quite accessible). There aren't many surprises here - though people mmore casually familiar with the tale of Grendel might be surprised to find out how much of the story isn't about killing monsters but is instead about the various intrigues and politics of Hrothgar's court.

This is followed by The Adventure of the Barrow-Dragon , which I find even more interesting - because while it, too, hews fairly close to the source material, there are suggestions strewn throughout the adventure for ways in which the PCs can stray even further from canon.

For example, the adventure's setup involves the PCs being present at a Thing (a big meeting sort of affair, not like A Thing That Happened), during which a dragon attacks and slays a local chieftain named Saeferth. The adventure also suggests that they should all be friendly to Saeferth - his death is the emotional hook used to push the PCs towards the adventure, while also supplying them with Passions that might be useful.

Now, in many game books - and in a depressingly large number of games - that's it. The book says Saeferth dies, so that mofo's dead, and you can't do shit about it. Right?


Land of Giants gets so many props from me for this sort of thing. Too many games aren't willing to even entertain the notion of players doing shit that doesn't 'fit the story;' this one's willing to run with it. Bravo, Chris Hind, you're good people.

At any rate, there's a dragon; the PCs go kill it. One other bit I quite enjoyed:


Terribly appropriate for the genre!

I'm not going into a ton of detail on the adventures, because, well, people might want to run them one day (I hear some of you are interested in picking up Pendragon - damned if I'm gonna spoil that for anyone!), but suffice it to say that these are both pretty lengthy and involved adventures; the general Pendragon rule-of-thumb that "one game session equals one year of adventuring equals one adventure" would probably have to be broken here, but since I've never had much use for that rule of thumb anyways, I don't mind.

Land of Giants is one of the best Pendragon supplements I've read, and I'd not given it the attention it deserved before now. So thanks for that, thread!

As before, I figure I'll give people a chance to weigh in on what (if anything - I suppose 'nothing, you're boring' is an option) I should review/discuss next. So would people be interested in seeing:

Pagan Shore , Ireland in the Age of King Arthur;
Lordly Domains , the book of Wealth, Lands, Titles, Prey, War & Heraldry,
or Beyond the Wall , Pictland and the North...

...or should I take a break from Pendragon supplements and instead talk about HoL (Human Occupied Landfill) , the beer-and-pretzels sci-fi parody game thingy?