Last update: 1999-12-12

This chronicle will grow with time, relating how my current campaign is proceeding. It is in the form of an old knight's memoirs, penned down long after the events he is reminiscing has come to pass. He is not, I might add, a player knight and neither is he a gamemaster character. He is just a knight who was there, and who was found to be a good listener by his companions. When he is the last one left alive, he decides to reveal his secrets and to explain some mysterious events. In this narrative, you will encounter many people, some more important than others. Some are player knights and some are not, and no indication is given of which is which.

One of the players, Ann-Cathrine Loo, is a very talented artist, and she has rendered many characters in pencil. She has only made those who "have really come to life, who you really can see inside your head when you hear what they do." Furthermore, she has made illustrations of especially memorable events in the campaign. These can be found both on separate pages and in the running narrative. Hopefully, there'll be one per chapter.

The campaign began in Bedford, a barony in Huntingdon, in 494 AD. I have taken some liberties with the history given in Boy King, to try my own angle and to confuse the players who have played the whole campaign earlier.

• Firstly, I have not played upon the tribal society of the celts in Britain. Instead of tribes and chieftains, we see a Britain which is becoming populated by kings, barons and peasants - it's the time of transition between the traditional tribal and a feudal medieval society.
• Secondly, the Anglish invasion has already taken place when the campaign begins. They has been repelled from Deira and settled in the lands of the Iceni and renamed it Anglia. Protected by the sea in the North and East, by the fens in the West and by the Saxons in Essex in the South, the Angles have carved a good life in Britain. They live in peace and are more interested in trading than in fighting. Basically, the difference between Angles and Saxons is that the former have a profession, but are warriors too, while the latter are warriors, and have a profession on the side. One of the players was told "If a Saxon is talking to you in a friendly way, he is an Anglishman", which sums it up pretty well. The reason for this distinction will become apparent if you read the story.
• Thirdly, the politics and plots are all my own. And there are lots of them!

There is some magic in this campaign, but it is never explained, and the rules in the 4th edition of the rules are not used. Users of magic use magic, and the results are predetermined by me. As gamemaster, I have chosen to refer to what I call narrative necessity. What happens happens because it is needed for the story. This does not mean the players are powerless, swept along by an unyielding fate, not at all. I've adjusted the story many times in response to actions of the players, but things outside their control are not explained outside the story, and the players are not privy to the plans, goals and motivations of the GM characters unless those has been revealed in play.

I have had a fairly detailed outline for this campaign, and the GM characters all has their own agendas and ambitions. For the most part, the players has followed the what I have judged the most likely course, although they often have done things differently, sometimes shockingly so, than I have expected, but that is what roleplaying games are all about. So far, no one has complained about feeling constrained by the story, or having limited options, so I think we all together have succeeded in making it a living story, with believable characters and plots. What more, I wonder, can one ask for?