Medieval Nights - any requests?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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So with The House of the Crescent Sun fully fulfilled (if you backed the print version and haven't received it, then either you haven't paid shipping or you need to tell me because the mail man has eaten your books!)... my next Kickstarter will be Medieval Nights, which is an anthology of medieval adventures based on actual medieval stories (not modern tales or fantasy tropes).

This is about 85% written, and I've plundered authors from William of Malmesbury (because the Witch of Berkeley is a must!) to Walter Map (so many to choose from!) to Marie de France (not your usual clichéd werewolf) to Burchard of Worms (float through walls, dig out human hearts, eat them, and then do what?!).

But "85%" means I've got room for one or two more adventures.

So, this is a good time to ask:

Any requests?

I've already had a request for The Green Children of Woolpit ("two odd kids turn up and everyone is nice to them"... yeah, that was not easy to turn into an adventure, but I did it... and sorry kids but not everyone is nice now - cue evil Merinita mage…). Any more suggestions?

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For reference

I've done a 12 minute video looking at turning The Witch of Berkley into an RPG story/adventure: https://youtu.be/YbDuZVsm7UM

And the Medieval Nights prelaunch page is here on Kickstarter:.

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What about the Giant of Mont Saint Michel from Le Morte d’Arthur? A cannibalistic, rapacious, murderous giant that wore a coat woven from the beards of previous kings he had defeated and fought with an iron club.

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Hmm. I had been avoiding the romances. But that’s an interesting one. Tributes or cloaks of beards, and monsterous people/ogres wearing them seem a recurrent medieval trope theme (there’s a Welsh legend, there’s a character in Arrow-Odd’s Saga, etc.).

OK. Let me have a think!

Thanks :slight_smile:

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Long Lankin. Troll variant? Infernally powered highwayman?

I'm I fan of Grim, King of the Ghosts, but I wrote him up for Maganomia and I try not to double up, so I'd be interested to see what you do with him.

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They’re both 18th Century, aren’t they? (I’m not aware of anything earlier than Pills to Purge Melancholy for Grim?) If there’s a medieval text for either then I can work with that.

But Long Lankin is certainly tempting for something really insidiously nasty!

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Oh, you mean -really- medieval, not just set medieval?

More power to you.

St. Erkenwald? 14th century? Needs conflict.
3 living and dead kings? 13th century? Again, not a lot of conflict.

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The lack of conflict is often a challenge. One of the House of the Cresent Sun backers suggested the Green Children of Woolpit - which is basically “two weird children turn up, and everyone is fairly nice to them, then they become normal” - and I worked with that :wink:

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I wrote them up for issue one of Mythic Europe Magazine. The girl becomes a bit of a firebrand when she grows up.

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Yes, I saw your write up - you suggested a lost covenant in Saint Martin’s Land? It is really tempting to give the PCs a whole new land to explore (I kept it more focused… but ooooh, the temptation!) :slight_smile:

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Thought of another possibility. From the Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis - the 13th century chronicle. The tale of rebel Saxons who fled England in the wake of the Norman Conquests and travelled to Constantinople, where the Emperor granted them land in the Crimea where they founded Nova Anglia. I’m sure you could build a really good adventure around that.

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Well, *someone* could build a pretty awesome saga around that - but not me, as I don’t know nearly enough about the Crimea in the period.

But a beard-collecting ogre-like murderer in NW Europe, I can run with. So I’ll go with that :slight_smile:

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