Raids, Ruins, & Hersey In The Countryside - G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (1e) By Gary Gygax & The Hundred Years War

 So what happens when the giants during The Hundred Year War start to stir in the Welsh terrorities?! The players have already gone through the N1 Against the Reptile Cult & that's been put down. Now reports of giants have begun to get reports that giants are raiding the countryside. 

Now here's the thing, a prisoner has escaped back to the authorities, & she reports a pagan hersey involved as well. She seen Ysbaddaden Bencawr; "Ysbaddaden, Chief of Giants, among them.



Illustration by John D. Batten (1892)

Whose Ysbaddaden?  Ysbaddaden Bencawr is  the chief antagonist of the early Arthurian tale How Culhwch won Olwen. And very dangerous as well as cunning;"Ysbaddaden Bencawr; "Ysbaddaden, Chief of Giants," is the primary antagonist of the Welsh romance Culhwch ac Olwen.^[1] A vicious giant residing in a nigh unreachable castle, he is the father of Olwen and uncle of Goreu fab Custennin.

Culhwch's father, King Cilydd son of Celyddon, loses his wife Goleuddydd after a difficult childbirth. When Cilydd remarries, the young Culhwch rejects his stepmother's attempt to pair him with his new stepsister. Offended, the new queen puts a curse on him so that he can marry no one besides the beautiful Olwen, daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden. Though he has never seen her, Culhwch becomes infatuated with her, but his father warns him that he will never find her without the aid of his famous cousin Arthur. The young man immediately sets off to seek his kinsman. He finds him at his court in Celliwig in Cornwall and asks for support and assistance.

Arthur agrees to help, and sends six warriors to join Culhwch in his search for Olwen. They travel onwards until they come across the "fairest of the castles of the world", and meet Ysbaddaden's shepherd brother, Custennin. They learn that the castle belongs to Ysbaddaden, that he stripped Custennin of his lands and murdered the shepherd's twenty-three children out of cruelty. Custennin set up a meeting between Culhwch and Olwen, and the maiden agrees to lead Culhwch and his companions to Ysbadadden's castle. The warrior Cai pledges to protect the twenty-fourth son, Goreu, with his life." 

Make no mistake this turns 'G1 The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief ' by Gary Gygax into a full on inquistor's campaign starter module involving Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos . The PC's are going to be acting as the Black Prince's agents in the Welsh countryside. 

Edward The Black Prince is a major NPC influence here & isn't to be taken lightly. The PC's are going to report directly too him through mystical means. The major NPC villain here is going to acting through intermediatary NPC's so the chief in Gary Gygax's Steading is a vassel or chieftain of Ysbaddaden Bencawr. 
The PC's are dealing with the fall out of Arthur and Gwalchmai fab Gwyar efforts & this propels things ahead at break neck speed. The PC's are going to be up to their necks in this one. 

Culhwch at Ysbaddaden's court. An illustration by E. Wallcousins in Celtic Myth & Legend, Charles Squire, 1920 "Horses shall I have, and chivalry; and my Lord and kinsman Arthur will obtain for me all these things. And I shall gain thy daughter, and thou shalt lose thy life." "Go forward...and when thou hast compassed all these marvels, thou shalt have my daughter for thy wife."

The Drow are going to be mentioned & they have an entirely different agenda & its not a good one. "
Temple found under the steading is explicitly stated to be dedicated to the Elder Eye, which by 4th edition was synonymous with Tharizdun." And this might tie in with Norkers being a part of the mercenary armies of the Drow and  'The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun' by Gary Gygax. 

The PC's are being manipulated from all sides here & they are going to be dealing with some very heavy duty foes. Extra player characters are going to need to be on stand by. Basically this is simply going to turn into yet another front in the Hundred Years war. The Drow are following an age old pattern set out by their Elven god ancestors to manipulate the humans. They don't bank on humanity's ability to cope with the mythological at this point. 

We'll get into the tie in with 

RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 coming up! 

Beyond The Barrier of Time - King Arthur, Venger Satanis's Cha'alt, & The Chaos & Blood of The Hundred Years War

In the desire of welded lips,
Of heart on prone tumultuous heart,
Abides no stronger thing than this
Dread love that keeps our lips apart.

Between us lies an ancient fear;
Before me, in thy troubled eyes,
A shadow flees as flees the nymph,
Tremulous with the faun's surprise.

Hard silence like a stifling hand
Withholds the word we fain would say;
Over us lies the dreamt caress
Transfixèd with a dear dismay.

When shall the passion of the faun
Resistless in my heart arise,
And take the warm and trembling nymph
That flees within thy startled eyes ?

The Barrier  (1923) 

by Clark Ashton Smith

There sometimes seems to be an rpg market place momentum for certain corners of the OSR gaming scene. I've been doing a lot of tossing around some very OSR & O5R ideas over the last couple of days. Having been out on the road with sewing machine repair work I've had little time to check in on a few events going around the OSR & Kickstarter. Venger Satanis's Cha'alt kickstarter has been on going for sometime now. Its a post apocalyptic cum fantasy table top adventure campaign setting book.  & yes I do think you should check it out & support it. Now while this is a gonzo setting how do you incorporate such a setting into a traditional Dungeons & Dragons game or a another OSR game such as Rpg Pundit Lion & Dragon 
Well, while Lion & Dragon takes place within the Dark Albion universe & during the Rose War. I've really plumped the depths of that conflict & over the years I've linked several universal events that tie back into the Rose War. One of these is the fact that the Hundred Years War proceeded it. You can think of the Hundred Years War as the prequel setting for the Rose War.



The Hundred Years War is one of the most dynamic periods of warfare in human history & one of the times when a very solid percentage of the Earth's population died, Since Albion happens in real time this same sequence happened here ; 

The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries.

Tensions between the crowns of France and England can be traced back to the origins of the English royal family itself, which was French (Norman, and later, Angevin) in origin. For this reason, English monarchs had historically held not only the English Crown, but also titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English King's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away lands as the opportunity arose, particularly whenever England was at war with Scotland, an ally of France. Over the centuries, English holdings in France had varied in size, at some points dwarfing even the French royal domain; by 1337, however, only Gascony was left to the English.

In 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne (later retroactively attributed to the ancient Salic law). In 1328, Charles IV of France died without sons or brothers. His closest male relative was his nephew Edward III of England, whose mother, Isabella of France, was sister of the deceased King. Isabella claimed the throne of France for her son, but the French rejected it, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right she did not possess. Furthermore, political sentiment favoured a Frenchman for the crown rather than a foreign prince. The throne passed instead to Philip, Count of Valois, a patrilineal cousin of Charles IV, who would become Philip VI of France, the first king of the House of Valois. The English had not expected their claim to meet with success, and did not press the matter when it was denied. However, disagreements between Philip and Edward induced the former to confiscate the latter's lands in France, and in turn prompted Edward III to reassert his claim to the French throne.

Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt—raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph, and convinced the English to continue pouring money and manpower into the war over many decades. However, the greater resources of the French monarchy prevented the English kings from ever completing the conquest of France. Starting in 1429, decisive French victories at Orléans, Patay, Formigny, and Castillon concluded the war in favour of the House of Valois, with England permanently losing most of its possessions on the continent." During the Rose War there were war, famine, drought, earthquakes, plagues, floods,&  tempests along with strange occult events that flowed across Europe like the hand of the Devil. The 1300 AD event  is a bit of climate event evidence that ties in with this. What if the weaponized occult weather related  1300 AD events were the last push of the forces of Chaotic Elves & Fairy gods trying to take back their world?

In Albion they did just that, the events of King Arthur's history were real & there were various powerful families of the Fey witches in Avalon. These families sought to bring the ancient Pagan gods back to dominance but all of the while played a bloody game of occult chess among themselves. The Le Feys, The Morgauses, etc were the names for a variety of powerful families that existed up through the Rose War. They wielded powerful magicks & occult forces in games of dominance, blood, & dust in the back corners of history. 


War, plague, & famine are the perfect cover for adventurers & mercenaries to cross from one world to another. There have always been weak points & doorways in the fabric of space time especially in certain sacred  areas of Mystara & Greyhawk. 



So what does this have to do with  Venger Satanis's Cha'alt kickstarter ? Everything as certain alien gods & dire forces of the setting take full advantage of the chaos of the Hundred Years War to snatch certain key individuals from Albion Greyhawk & even Mystara. The fog of war offers the dungeon master the perfect opportunity to put together. 

her a mixed party of old school & OSR adventurers by taking full advantage of the situation. Clark Ashton Smith's  Averoigne stories are based in a relatively mundane (for Smith) province in medieval France & so offer the perfect venue to put down such mercen erm adventurers into the middle of the events of history. We already know that there's been a clear cut connection between Greyhawk & the mythological legends of King Arthur. But the points of actual cross over are murky at best & possibly outright legend in some places. Is there a possible blood connection between Arthur's blood line & some of the gods of Greyhawk?
Some of the knightly orders of Greyhawk reveal some worldly parallels between Greyhawk & the Earth of Arthur's time.

 

So during the lead up of the Hundred Years war there were literally thousands of mercenary companies raiding & pillaging across Europe. This is the perfect opportunity to loot & pillage the countryside. But player's PC's could find themselves in far more dangerous realities then they were expecting with adventure right around the corner. The players are not going to be expecting the nasty surprises coming straight out of the annals of history! We've got more coming up explaining the deeper connections in Europe during the Hundred Years War including more on the Holy Grail & its deep connections to the misconceptions about its roll during the war! 

Blood, Thunder, Beer, & The Hundred Years War - Campaign Commentary Set up

So I've been spending some time with a friend today at a local watering hole discussing of all things B/X Dungeons & Dragons & The Hundred Years War.

So between beers & conversation we began to pick apart & overview the Hundred Years War with parallels to B/X Dungeons & Dragons's adventuring conditions. First of all let's do a quick overview of one of the most complex & bloody wars in Europe's history in a quick nut shell via Wiki;
"The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, over the succession to the French throne."

This is a complex, three sided & force sided war with far reaching economic, sociological, & even cultural wars.These conflicts bankrupted nations & led directly too the War of The Roses in England & this led to entire generations of families having to eke out a living however they could. Sounds suspiciously like adventurers doesn't it? The one thing that 'Morley the wizard' never told you was that your adventurers were going to have to keep crawling for that gold in those dungeons & the ruins of those classic adventures.




All of this relates to the dawn of Original Dungeons & Dragons when war gaming miniature clubs were all the rage back in the 60's & 70's across the United States & Europe. See Gary Gygax &  David Lance "Dave" Arneson were movers & shakers in the late Sixties war game scene which actually gave rise to original Dungeons & Dragons.

So flash forward to the beers & the tonight's discussion over an old '95 issue of Strategy & Tactics which contained one of the best paper war games of the Hundred Years War described by Board Game Geeks;" The game recreates the wars fought between England and France between 1337 and 1453. Each game turn represents 1 year. Each unit represents leaders or 1-2000 soldiers. The units are either English (red), French (blue) or independent (white). The map is divided into areas not hexes and comes with 280 counters.

Victory is determined by comparing each major powers victory point total with its initial resource value."  This was a fantastic war game & its been trotted out over the years getting lots of air play at our various tables. It does exactly what it says on the tin. So how does the Hundred Years War apply in B/X Dungeons & Dragons? Hmm a lot easier then you might think. The Battle of Castillon marks the end of the Hundred Years War & is a transition & end battle clearly with a victory for the French. 

 

 This was a very weird time in France especially at the borders of the country. There's lots of rumors going around, backwater villages & towns need to be secured. There's also that backwater castle & the trading post that needs to be taken care of but the war has stretched thin the army perhaps your band of adventurers can help. Yes I'm speaking of B2 Keep Of The Borderlands by Gary Gygax.


This walk into the back water part of the French 'victory' could highlight the need for adventurers intervention as the extent of the witchcraft of the location begins to manifest though out the countryside. The horrific elements could be stuff straight out of nightmare & mythology.  There are several elements of The Battle of Castillon that make it an interesting match up. First of all the use of guns, gunpowder, matchlocks, and long bows all had their time on the battle's stage.

 

So talking about the Hundred Years War I can help but bring up Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion & Cults of Chaos. Because the outcome of that real world take on the war has a very different outcome for France. The whole place becomes over run with French demon worshiping frogmen. Something went very wrong during  The Battle of Castillon allowing the Frogmen to consolidate power in the region.


There is a long history of witchcraft, chaos worship, & worse within the hills surrounding this region allowing a DM to situate an entire campaign centered around these events especially if they happen to be using a B/X Dungeons & Dragons game or a retroclone engine of the same type. Dark Albion is unique in that allows the DM to customize it based upon their DMing & player's preferences in D&D edition's gaming engine.


Once again there's actually little that's going to change with the introduction of Keep On The Borderland in a Dark Albion campaign. The Keep & its environs are going to be knee deep in avoiding the Inquistion & keeping ahead of the local people. The Frogmen might not have made that many in roads into this unusual back water location. This could be why they are contacting the PC's. This is so they can free up other on the ground assets. The Hundred Years war makes an excellent prequel to a classic module and the adventure backdrop of Dark Albion.
For now keep em rolling folks!