(I know this isn't related at all to pirates or Batman but I like it anyway. Now on to the rp.)
Welcome to the Dark Ages-- or, should I say, a poet's very idealized vision of the Dark Ages, which has weapons, armor, and all sorts of other things present that didn't exist until centuries later. (Just see the paintings and woodcut below if you don't believe me.) This was --well, we can certainly pretend it was, anyway-- a time of chivalry and romance, filled with danger, dragons, damsels in distress, sorcery, random flocks of holy angels who appear for no clear reason, and noble rich people saving the world (meaning England of course) from the clutches of evil by retrieving an artifact that is never mentioned anyplace in scripture (but we know Christ used it because, um, we said so. So there.)
"Take that, curse you!"
"But all I wanted to do was ask for directions..."
"Doh dee doh dee doh..."
"Sure it's safe, Sir Galahad. It only looks highly treacherous."
"I still don't know..."
"And I want a pony, and a slinky, and a new bicycle..."
"You know darling, that plate mail you're wearing didn't exist until--"
"Oh, what does it matter? Kiss me already."
"But honey..."
"I don't have time for that right now. Can't you see that I'm busy being all brooding and pious?"
"Lady of the Lake indeed! You're really a man."
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setting and Overview
Rules, Guidelines, and Other Points of Interest
Knights Available
Other Notable Characters (None of Whom You're Allowed to Play)
Combat and Piety
Starting Out
Setting and Overview:
England, Camelot (to start with at least), in the 6th Century A.D. Very, very, very, VERY loosely inspired by the legends of The Knights of the Round Table. (Meaning that my research consisted of skimming a few articles on Wikipedia and looking at various paintings.)
And as you can see, I don't take the concept of King Arthur very seriously. (It's no small wonder in my opinion that the Monty Python crew decided to do a parody of the whole thing.) So don't be too surprised if much of the tone of the game is rather "tongue-in-cheek" or comical.
Just a few notes about King Arthur, medieval life and knights in general for your reference:
(Although we'll ignore some of these for game purposes)
Knights were actually members of the nobility, living in their own little estate with a garrison of troops (and household servants) when they weren't serving the King as bodyguards and companions (on a rotating basis.) They would have been educated by a chaplain, who they could have very well been related to since the clergy were also of noble blood, and may even have had a squire or two under their wing-- that is, knights in training. The medieval knight was expected to be pious, chivalrous, loyal to the King, and to protect noble ladies and the Catholic Church (which was quite powerful in Europe at that time. But I digress.)
Medieval medicine was quite primitive, with practices such as bloodletting not being uncommon, and doctors tended to rely off of superstition and guesswork-- needless to say, their patient survival rate when it came to surgery generally wasn't that high.
It is debated that there probably really was a King Arthur of sorts-- without the Holy Grail and all that other stuff. Scholars place him as being alive in either the 5th or 6th century and the earliest mentions of him are supposedly in 6th century Welsh poetry. For more see Wikipedia King Arthur.
And on that note, King Arthur and his "knights" may have been Romans left behind in Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. If so, their main enemies would have been Saxon invaders of Germanic origin, who were more or less barbarians. (See Sub-Roman Britain.) However, in this game Camelot is going to be much more "Anglo-Saxon" for the most part: the knights will be decked out in chain mail, which was lighter and much more flexible than the plate armor you can see in the various works of art shown above (and incidentally plate armor of that kind did not exist until the 13th century-- over seven hundred years after King Arthur would have been dead); a surcoat thrown over that; and probably some kind of helmet similar to a spangenhelm. As for weapons, well, the most obvious choices would be swords, axes, maces, and maybe spears-- I'll leave the specifics of that up to you. For a look at some very good examples of medieval armor and such, check out the "Gallery of Armour" at Arador.com.
The first recorded jousting tournament wasn't until 1066 A.D., and the sport didn't achieve popularity until two centuries later. (According to Wikipedia Jousting anyway.) So even though it's highly unlikely that it would've been a past time for anyone in and around Camelot, I might ignore this fact and allow it anyway-- and if I don't that certainly doesn't mean the Knights of the Round Table can't challenge other warriors in combat. Lay on!
Rules, Guidelines, and Other Points of Interest:
--Please observe all guild rules and so forth.
--My word is law.
--No god-modding. (And if you're not sure what that is, go here.)
--Do not make your knight into a "Mary/Marty Sue." That is, the awesomest, faultless, most coolest person in the world who very quickly upstages all the other characters (and who may or may not be your obvious alter-ego.) For more details about the horrors of the "Mary Sue," you can visit here.
--No cybering.
--Romance is all right, but keep in mind what I've just said about "no cybering."
--I don't care how much you write so long as you use proper spelling and grammar. * * or [ ] to denote action is acceptable (although I'd much rather have you type things out in story format) and try to stick to third-person past tense. If your posts are too hard to follow (or whatever) I'll let you know.
--Use {{ }} or (( )) for out-of-game comments.
--The only character you should have any control over is YOUR OWN. Everyone will be in charge of his or her respective character and all NPC's will be run by ME. Just so we're clear on that. Also, do not introduce ANY new characters into play (be they relatives, squires, damsels in distress, villains, or whatever else) unless you have cleared it with me beforehand.
--Do NOT attempt to sideline the plot with your own story ideas (or if you'd like to try something, please be sure to at least consult with me first.) This is a very good way to get me annoyed and with the way I'm going to run this game I will likely penalize people and strike them with lightening bolts from out of the blue (and so on.)
--Unless there's a good reason, do not split up or go wandering around by yourselves too much. This is also a good way to annoy me and again, may result in bad things happening to your character.
--The "dice roll" post action will be used for some things in game, just to let you know. (See the "Combat and Piety" section below.) I may also decide to use it for stuff above and beyond what's mentioned, so just keep that in mind.
--Using "Ye Olde English" is not only fun but encouraged. So go ahead and use "thee" and "thou" and all that other great stuff.
--Do not abuse out-of-character knowledge, including different aspects of the Arthurian Legends; after all, just because you yourself are aware of something does not mean that your knight in-game would be. For example, if Sir Tristan sneaks off to hold a secret meeting with one of King Arthur's enemies, nobody would know it unless they happened to follow him and witness the event firsthand. So the rest of the party could not just automatically pounce on him for being a traitor when he got back; they'd have to discover his act of treachery as the game moved along.
--Bear in mind that if you do sign up to play, I expect you to actively participate. I'm not saying you can't sluff off for a day or two, or always have to be contributing constantly, but if two or more weeks go by and you STILL haven't posted anything I may remove you completely from the game and find someone else to take over your knight.
--Feel free to PM me anytime during gameplay with any comments, questions, or concerns you might have.
--PM me with the subject heading "Knights of Camelot" to let me know you're interested along with what knight you'd like to play (they're all listed below.) And be sure to include "Ruffles have ridges" at the bottom of your PM so I know for sure that you read all my rules.
Other rules, guidelines, and so forth to be added as needed.
Knights Available/In Play:
Note: You can ignore the weapons they're shown with if you so choose. I just wanted some variety, that's all.
Sir Bedivere the Wise (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Sir Bors the Younger (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 2
Health Points: 100
Sir Galahad the Chaste (Taken by Nightwing_Of_Bludhaven)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 5
Health Points: 100
Sir Lancelot the Brave (Taken by Harrywh)
Attack/Defense Rating: 6
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Sir Palamedes the Saracen (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 4
Health Points: 100
Sir Percival the Innocent (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 4
Health Points: 100
Sir Tristan the Musically Gifted (Taken by Melnoli)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Other Notable Characters (None of Whom You're Allowed to Play):
King Arthur Pendragon (NPC)
Queen Guinevere (NPC)
Merlin the Sorceror (NPC)
Morgan LaFaye (NPC)
Mordred (NPC)
The Lady of the Lake (NPC)
Combat and Piety:
You no doubt have noticed that each knight has three traits: Attack/Defensive Rating, Piety Level, and Health Points. Here's a handy break-down of what each of these things mean:
Attack/Defense Rating
How good your character is in combat. When battling, the respective attacker/defender each roll 1 six sided die (using the "Die Roll" Post Action.) Whatever number you roll (from 1-6, 1 being an automatic failure, 6 an automatic success) is then multiplied by your Attack/Defense Rating. Whoever has the highest number wins. And in the event of a tie, we end up with stalemate and can try all over again until either someone gives up or one of the combatants succeeds. For some sample combat, go here.
Piety Level
Your character's strength of faith. Once per day (in game time, not real time) your knight may try to invoke a miracle (within reason of course) or ask for heavenly guidance. (Or whatever else you can think of doing that might require the use of Piety.) This works pretty much the same way as combat: your Piety Level works as a multiplier for your roll, so if you have a Piety of 4 and get a 3 with the die roll, you would end up with 12 as your total. Then I get to roll against you. (Heh heh heh.) And if you win, you get to have happen whatever it was you wanted to have happen. If not, better luck next time.
Health Points
How much damage your character can take before they are considered mortally wounded-- with only minutes to live unless something drastic occurs. Damage received is equal to whatever the attacker rolls in combat times their Attack/Defense Rating. (Not including any possible modifiers I might enforce, like double-damage for not wearing armor and the like.) So let's say your knight has 100 Health Points, and gets hit for 15 damage: he would then have 85 points left before he was at death's door. Health Points are typically regained through rest and/or medical treatment (at a rate of 2 six sided dice per day, or more or less, depending on what conditions your knight is being kept under) although other methods of healing may be possible during play as well. Note: You can never have more Health Points than what you originally started out with. Ever. Unless I say so. Which is not very likely, so please don't bother asking.
Hope I haven't thrown too much at you with this stuff. I just wanted to add some spice to the game, as well as some clearly defined structure to combat. And if you're afraid that you won't be able to keep track of all this, don't fret, because I'll certainly be marking everything down; I will also give out reminders about how things work and whatever else as needed.
Starting Out:
I'll begin with the first role playing post to set things up. And from there we'll see where the adventures of the brave knights of Camelot lead!
Welcome to the Dark Ages-- or, should I say, a poet's very idealized vision of the Dark Ages, which has weapons, armor, and all sorts of other things present that didn't exist until centuries later. (Just see the paintings and woodcut below if you don't believe me.) This was --well, we can certainly pretend it was, anyway-- a time of chivalry and romance, filled with danger, dragons, damsels in distress, sorcery, random flocks of holy angels who appear for no clear reason, and noble rich people saving the world (meaning England of course) from the clutches of evil by retrieving an artifact that is never mentioned anyplace in scripture (but we know Christ used it because, um, we said so. So there.)
"Take that, curse you!"
"But all I wanted to do was ask for directions..."
"Doh dee doh dee doh..."
"Sure it's safe, Sir Galahad. It only looks highly treacherous."
"I still don't know..."
"And I want a pony, and a slinky, and a new bicycle..."
"You know darling, that plate mail you're wearing didn't exist until--"
"Oh, what does it matter? Kiss me already."
"But honey..."
"I don't have time for that right now. Can't you see that I'm busy being all brooding and pious?"
"Lady of the Lake indeed! You're really a man."
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setting and Overview
Rules, Guidelines, and Other Points of Interest
Knights Available
Other Notable Characters (None of Whom You're Allowed to Play)
Combat and Piety
Starting Out
Setting and Overview:
England, Camelot (to start with at least), in the 6th Century A.D. Very, very, very, VERY loosely inspired by the legends of The Knights of the Round Table. (Meaning that my research consisted of skimming a few articles on Wikipedia and looking at various paintings.)
And as you can see, I don't take the concept of King Arthur very seriously. (It's no small wonder in my opinion that the Monty Python crew decided to do a parody of the whole thing.) So don't be too surprised if much of the tone of the game is rather "tongue-in-cheek" or comical.
Just a few notes about King Arthur, medieval life and knights in general for your reference:
(Although we'll ignore some of these for game purposes)
Knights were actually members of the nobility, living in their own little estate with a garrison of troops (and household servants) when they weren't serving the King as bodyguards and companions (on a rotating basis.) They would have been educated by a chaplain, who they could have very well been related to since the clergy were also of noble blood, and may even have had a squire or two under their wing-- that is, knights in training. The medieval knight was expected to be pious, chivalrous, loyal to the King, and to protect noble ladies and the Catholic Church (which was quite powerful in Europe at that time. But I digress.)
Medieval medicine was quite primitive, with practices such as bloodletting not being uncommon, and doctors tended to rely off of superstition and guesswork-- needless to say, their patient survival rate when it came to surgery generally wasn't that high.
It is debated that there probably really was a King Arthur of sorts-- without the Holy Grail and all that other stuff. Scholars place him as being alive in either the 5th or 6th century and the earliest mentions of him are supposedly in 6th century Welsh poetry. For more see Wikipedia King Arthur.
And on that note, King Arthur and his "knights" may have been Romans left behind in Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. If so, their main enemies would have been Saxon invaders of Germanic origin, who were more or less barbarians. (See Sub-Roman Britain.) However, in this game Camelot is going to be much more "Anglo-Saxon" for the most part: the knights will be decked out in chain mail, which was lighter and much more flexible than the plate armor you can see in the various works of art shown above (and incidentally plate armor of that kind did not exist until the 13th century-- over seven hundred years after King Arthur would have been dead); a surcoat thrown over that; and probably some kind of helmet similar to a spangenhelm. As for weapons, well, the most obvious choices would be swords, axes, maces, and maybe spears-- I'll leave the specifics of that up to you. For a look at some very good examples of medieval armor and such, check out the "Gallery of Armour" at Arador.com.
The first recorded jousting tournament wasn't until 1066 A.D., and the sport didn't achieve popularity until two centuries later. (According to Wikipedia Jousting anyway.) So even though it's highly unlikely that it would've been a past time for anyone in and around Camelot, I might ignore this fact and allow it anyway-- and if I don't that certainly doesn't mean the Knights of the Round Table can't challenge other warriors in combat. Lay on!
Rules, Guidelines, and Other Points of Interest:
--Please observe all guild rules and so forth.
--My word is law.
--No god-modding. (And if you're not sure what that is, go here.)
--Do not make your knight into a "Mary/Marty Sue." That is, the awesomest, faultless, most coolest person in the world who very quickly upstages all the other characters (and who may or may not be your obvious alter-ego.) For more details about the horrors of the "Mary Sue," you can visit here.
--No cybering.
--Romance is all right, but keep in mind what I've just said about "no cybering."
--I don't care how much you write so long as you use proper spelling and grammar. * * or [ ] to denote action is acceptable (although I'd much rather have you type things out in story format) and try to stick to third-person past tense. If your posts are too hard to follow (or whatever) I'll let you know.
--Use {{ }} or (( )) for out-of-game comments.
--The only character you should have any control over is YOUR OWN. Everyone will be in charge of his or her respective character and all NPC's will be run by ME. Just so we're clear on that. Also, do not introduce ANY new characters into play (be they relatives, squires, damsels in distress, villains, or whatever else) unless you have cleared it with me beforehand.
--Do NOT attempt to sideline the plot with your own story ideas (or if you'd like to try something, please be sure to at least consult with me first.) This is a very good way to get me annoyed and with the way I'm going to run this game I will likely penalize people and strike them with lightening bolts from out of the blue (and so on.)
--Unless there's a good reason, do not split up or go wandering around by yourselves too much. This is also a good way to annoy me and again, may result in bad things happening to your character.
--The "dice roll" post action will be used for some things in game, just to let you know. (See the "Combat and Piety" section below.) I may also decide to use it for stuff above and beyond what's mentioned, so just keep that in mind.
--Using "Ye Olde English" is not only fun but encouraged. So go ahead and use "thee" and "thou" and all that other great stuff.
--Do not abuse out-of-character knowledge, including different aspects of the Arthurian Legends; after all, just because you yourself are aware of something does not mean that your knight in-game would be. For example, if Sir Tristan sneaks off to hold a secret meeting with one of King Arthur's enemies, nobody would know it unless they happened to follow him and witness the event firsthand. So the rest of the party could not just automatically pounce on him for being a traitor when he got back; they'd have to discover his act of treachery as the game moved along.
--Bear in mind that if you do sign up to play, I expect you to actively participate. I'm not saying you can't sluff off for a day or two, or always have to be contributing constantly, but if two or more weeks go by and you STILL haven't posted anything I may remove you completely from the game and find someone else to take over your knight.
--Feel free to PM me anytime during gameplay with any comments, questions, or concerns you might have.
--PM me with the subject heading "Knights of Camelot" to let me know you're interested along with what knight you'd like to play (they're all listed below.) And be sure to include "Ruffles have ridges" at the bottom of your PM so I know for sure that you read all my rules.
Other rules, guidelines, and so forth to be added as needed.
Knights Available/In Play:
Note: You can ignore the weapons they're shown with if you so choose. I just wanted some variety, that's all.
Sir Bedivere the Wise (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Sir Bors the Younger (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 2
Health Points: 100
Sir Galahad the Chaste (Taken by Nightwing_Of_Bludhaven)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 5
Health Points: 100
Sir Lancelot the Brave (Taken by Harrywh)
Attack/Defense Rating: 6
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Sir Palamedes the Saracen (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 4
Piety Level: 4
Health Points: 100
Sir Percival the Innocent (Available)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 4
Health Points: 100
Sir Tristan the Musically Gifted (Taken by Melnoli)
Attack/Defense Rating: 5
Piety Level: 3
Health Points: 100
Other Notable Characters (None of Whom You're Allowed to Play):
King Arthur Pendragon (NPC)
Queen Guinevere (NPC)
Merlin the Sorceror (NPC)
Morgan LaFaye (NPC)
Mordred (NPC)
The Lady of the Lake (NPC)
Combat and Piety:
You no doubt have noticed that each knight has three traits: Attack/Defensive Rating, Piety Level, and Health Points. Here's a handy break-down of what each of these things mean:
Attack/Defense Rating
How good your character is in combat. When battling, the respective attacker/defender each roll 1 six sided die (using the "Die Roll" Post Action.) Whatever number you roll (from 1-6, 1 being an automatic failure, 6 an automatic success) is then multiplied by your Attack/Defense Rating. Whoever has the highest number wins. And in the event of a tie, we end up with stalemate and can try all over again until either someone gives up or one of the combatants succeeds. For some sample combat, go here.
Piety Level
Your character's strength of faith. Once per day (in game time, not real time) your knight may try to invoke a miracle (within reason of course) or ask for heavenly guidance. (Or whatever else you can think of doing that might require the use of Piety.) This works pretty much the same way as combat: your Piety Level works as a multiplier for your roll, so if you have a Piety of 4 and get a 3 with the die roll, you would end up with 12 as your total. Then I get to roll against you. (Heh heh heh.) And if you win, you get to have happen whatever it was you wanted to have happen. If not, better luck next time.
Health Points
How much damage your character can take before they are considered mortally wounded-- with only minutes to live unless something drastic occurs. Damage received is equal to whatever the attacker rolls in combat times their Attack/Defense Rating. (Not including any possible modifiers I might enforce, like double-damage for not wearing armor and the like.) So let's say your knight has 100 Health Points, and gets hit for 15 damage: he would then have 85 points left before he was at death's door. Health Points are typically regained through rest and/or medical treatment (at a rate of 2 six sided dice per day, or more or less, depending on what conditions your knight is being kept under) although other methods of healing may be possible during play as well. Note: You can never have more Health Points than what you originally started out with. Ever. Unless I say so. Which is not very likely, so please don't bother asking.
Hope I haven't thrown too much at you with this stuff. I just wanted to add some spice to the game, as well as some clearly defined structure to combat. And if you're afraid that you won't be able to keep track of all this, don't fret, because I'll certainly be marking everything down; I will also give out reminders about how things work and whatever else as needed.
Starting Out:
I'll begin with the first role playing post to set things up. And from there we'll see where the adventures of the brave knights of Camelot lead!
