Seeing how this book's the front-runner in our little poll, I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask — What would you like to see in a SALISBURY book?

By opening this discussion, we are in no way promising to incorporate all suggestions in such a book — should one ever be produced. But, let's have a little round table chat just for grins. I'll start:

I'd like to see an updated map of the county, or maybe several versions of it to show it's evolution throughout the GPC. The map would have all cities, towns, and castles, estates and manors held by major NPCs as well as those eligible for PKs.

I'd also like updated stats for the power players.

Well, it's a start...

What would you like to see?


T.

Taliesin, I think your suggestions are good ones, detailed maps are handy indeed! Also, perhaps more in-depth information about Salisbury county could be included, covering geography: local landmarks, folklore (difficult to get hold of/verify I know), and more things that makes Salisbury an interesting and unique place to begin, and knights be from :D.

A breakdown of the powerful families and their landholdings might be good.

Expanded details on some of the eligible ladies and new potential wives for later periods - perhaps a roadmap for any attempted romance, rivals and plot hooks or a quest her father may require to win fair maids hand.

Some adventures featuring Stonehenge, Amesbury Abbey and other notable landmarks.

A multi-year scenario where a cousin of Earl Roderick comes out of the woodwork in the anarchy yo usurp Robert and the Countess.

1. To know more about these places and whom controls them and whom threatens them (am cutting and pasting from my Salisbury notes)

CASTLES
Sarum
Devises (motte and bailey) – guards the north.
du Plain – guards the east.
Ebble – guards the south.
Vagon – guards the west.

CITIES
Sarum
Wilton
Warminster
Tilshead
Tilton

2. These events and the effects and affects they can have on PK and NPC. For the non-Salisbury ones more about the people sponsoring them and their heralds running them.

Count Roderick's
SUMMER
1. Banquet at Tilshead
2. 1st Summer banquet at Sarum
3. Banquet at Ebble castle, hunt and search for robbers
4. 2nd Summer banquet at Sarum
5. Banquet at du Plain castle and raid against Silchester
6. Hunt in Collingbourne woods

AUTUMN
1. Banquet at the city of Mildenhall and hunt in Savernake forest.
2. Banquet Devizes castle
3. Hunt in Modron forest
4. Banquet at Warminster
5. Banquet at Vagon castle
6. Feast at Sarum castle
7. Roderick's tournament at Sarum
8. Banquet at Vagon castle
9. Banquet at Warminster
10. Hunt in Modron forest
11. Banquet at Devizes castle

TOURNAMENTS (AUTUMN)
Wells (County of Jagent)
Cirencester (Duchy of Clarence)
Bath (Kingdom of Somerset)
Gloucester (Duchy Of Gloucester)
Hantonne (County of Hampshire)
Silchester (Duchy of Silcester) [of war]
Wilton

3. Detailed organizational and personnel info for the Salisbury court and Salisbury castles.

4. More geographic info on Salisbury, as in what sort of fish, fowl, venison and monsters are in each of the: Woods; Rivers and what they're like. Does Salisbury have any big lakes (modern Wiltshire does but they're artificial. What sort of fowl and falcons and hawks do the falconers of Salisbury use.

5. More detail about the Salisbury Witches (hopefully in no way influenced by the modern religion of Wicca)

6. A larger Damsel list and amorous Dame's list. PK should have more belles to chase.

7. List of Royal officers in Salisbury and Salisbury Knights who have become Pendragon Household Knights and Knights of the Round table.

Some adventures featuring Stonehenge, Amesbury Abbey and other notable landmarks.

Yeah, this is what I would like. And not just this, a bunch of adventures based on folklore and place. Some could be very simple, other very hard, some could be solved in half an hour of game-play, others could be things that takes decades to solve. That would be nice. Lots and lots of local adventures and mysteries.

I would also like to see character profiles for all the major figures of Salisbury something like this....

Bishop Roger “The Gaul”
A common priest elevated Bishop of Salisbury by Ambrosius Aurelian, whom also made him both his chancellor and later Justicar of Logres. King Uther also made him his Justicar, but he schemed against Uther after Uther associated with Merlin.

There was an attempt on King Uther's life, which he escaped only through the aid of Merlin. It was suspected that Bishop Roger was behind the attempt as it would have left him the ruler of Logres. Uther ordered a young Sir Roderick, then Sheriff of Salisbury to serve a writ on Bishop Roger ordering him to appear at court and answer for his conduct. Sir Roderick. Bishop Roger when he received the writ handed it his Archdeacon to read to him (Roger is illiterate, though able to understand spoken Latin). He pulled the writ out of his of his Archdeacon's hands and tore it into small pieces, threw them at Sir Roderick and set his knights on him.

Sir Roderick defeated all 10 of them without killing or crippling any of them, even though they were more seasoned knights than him, being called Roderick the Bold thereafter. Bishop Roger loves to point out that his knights were unarmored, while Roderick had mail underneath his clothing. Roderick than gave Roger one more chance to obey the writ. Bishop roger attempted to strike Roderick with his croiser. Roderick easily countered the blow with his sword and knocked the wind out of Roger, threw him over his shoulder and took him screaming all the way to Uther. Bishop roger afterwards has always mocked Sir Roderick, calling him a coward and a Pagan.

Uther demanded that: Roger; his nephew Nigel ( Bishop of Ely and Uther's treasurer); his nephew Alexander (Bishop of Lincoln) to surrender the keys to their castles they agreed, instead they tried to raise a rebellion against Uther. The king ordered their arrest. Once jailed they escaped, possibly with the aid of Chancellor Roger, Bishop Roger's his bastard son by Dame Maud then Lady of Devizes Castle. All were recaptured except for Bishop Nigel, who escaped to the safety of Devizes Castle.

King Uther lowered them into the ground floor of his dungeon to rot, starving them until Bishop Nigel surrendered to him. He was going to execute the lot of them, but the Papal Legate to Logres threatened him with excommunication if he did. Uther being reckless and vengeful was still going to execute them , before Merlin begged for their lives.

Sir Roderick was made Count of Salisbury by King Uther. Bishop Roger is slowly building a new castle at Winchester. He'll be succeeded by Bishop Jocelin some time in the Chaos Period – at least in rumors claimed to have been originated by Merlin.

Count Roderick and his family are not welcome at Salisbury cathedral. He's rumored to have said that he “would rather be martyred than give a pagan the Holy Sacraments”. He is rumored to be actively scheming against Count Roderick, even with Saxon Pagans and still has a strong following amongst the Roman Christian Knights of Salisbury and Logres. He exists as a “Cardinal Richelieu” in Salisbury and Logres, a perfect, but untouchable foil for PK and Earl Roderick.

Note: this is more or less the real biography of Bishop Roger Pendragonized. the King he schemed against was king Stephen, his bastard son and nephews really had the titles and offices claimed and Dame Maud really was his paramour and really did hold Devizes, but as far as is known Merlin had no part in Roger's rebellion :D

Snaggle's post definitely nails it.

I would add the following:

1. Family trees of prominent clans
2. A good, seed-saturated timeline for the county and its residents. This should be history (Pre-485). There are some great story-seeds just in the Levcomagus rivalry, I'd like to see some inter-family feuds, neighbors etc.
3. A chapter on the nearby forests and plotlines within them.

There are lots of things that I would ask for but this book definitely treads the line between "in my game" and making certain things canon. I would ask for tons of details since I like that thing but folks might not.

Detailed map with all hunderds
Detailed maps for all hunderds
Details on all large estate-holders [these are the guys new players suck up too], with adventures seeds
Details on all important families, their heirs, holdings, heraldry (both male and female!), with adventures seeds
Details on the Count, his holdings, outside family members, with adventures seeds
Details on Counts court/officers/travel-schedule, with adventures seeds
Details on the Counts army/forces, with adventures seeds
Details on the Church(es) of Salisbury, with adventures seeds
Details on all Counts opponents (Castellan of Levcomagus!), with adventures seeds
Details on all major towns and their role, with adventures seeds
Details on all castles, and their owners/castellans, including maps, with adventures seeds
Details on important landmarks (including Forests), with adventures seeds
Details on how all above changes over time... (aka timeline, also for families), with adventures seeds
And all of this filled with adventures seeds, many, many adventures seeds
And Short adventures (like in the back of the (old) core book).
And short encounters that might occur on the road while travelling through Salisbury [a random encounter table]
Did I forget adventure seeds?

I would suggest many canon details, that can be ignored by the GM's whim, but does not leave open gaps in knowledge about Salisbury.

fg,
Thijs

I'll join the chorus that more detail and adventure seeds would be nice. I would also very much like to see the Book of Salisbury to be divided in Phases like the GPC. At the very least, I would like to have three different 'phases' detailed as campaign starts/interesting times:

1. Starting Uther Phase (GPC default)
2. Anarchy
3. Post-Conquest (530 onwards, the old default starting time)

Now part of this would be 'I'd be doing this in my campaign anyway if I would restart it', but then again, same can be said of the whole GPC, and it does make it easier for a starting/busy GM when someone has already thought these things through.

I very much would like to see more of the 'internal politics' of Salisbury. I'd like to see at least two major 'factions'/families who are opposed, and how this would play out during those phases. For example:

1. Uther Phase: (There is a bit of a continuity error between Ed 5.0 rulebook which has Robert born in 484 and GPC, where he is born later. This should be clarified.)
- If Robert is not born yet, the heiress is Lady Jenna, and the factions should be flocking to try and position their best men to be her suitors. Granted, she is likely too high born for them to succeed but one never knows.
- In addition, the factions would be jockeying for castallanships and to marry their kinsmen/allies to heiresses.
- At some point, the rising stars (the PKs) would be noticed and approached by the factions, promising patronage and help. If they accept, they of course would be opposed by the men of the other faction, giving some nice rivalry.

2. Anarchy
- Now these rivalries flare up, as the factions would either try to get their hands on the Regency (by marrying one of their own to the Countess or by becoming her trusted advisors or by backing a rival claimant). There should be also adventures about the free for all that the Anarchy is about to become, heiresses dispossessed/kidnapped and in need of champions. Saxon raids, etc. The factions (even if one is destroyed in a mini 'civil war'/'purge', there would be others rising up) might start jockeying for a chance to bring up the young Earl-to-be or to try to marry him off to one of their daughters, etc.
- By this time, the PKs would probably be the movers and shakers in one or several of the factions. But there might be a young guard rising, the post-Utherian knights who resent the old fogies and who might try to influence Robert...
- Of course, Anarchy is very hard to script since it gives so much power to the PKs to alter things (as it should!). But some guidelines would certainly be appreciated. Kinda like the default assumptions and then a couple of words on different options open to the PKs and their probable consequences.

Boy King period would be nice, too, but by and large, the PKs would likely be busy fighting in Arthur's wars and racking obscene amounts of glory in scripted battles. :P

3. Post-Conquest: The default setting for 4th edition and what, to me, is the baseline Pendragon. Some adventuring ideas here as well, as the politics are probably less fluid. So the focus would likely be in damsel rescuing, monster slaying and stuff like that.

3. Post-Conquest: The default setting for 4th edition and what, to me, is the baseline Pendragon. Some adventuring ideas here as well, as the politics are probably less fluid. So the focus would likely be in damsel rescuing, monster slaying and stuff like that.


Agreed, but with the proviso that the factions will be lying dormant ready to stage a comeback when the Orkney/Ganis rivalry at court turns toxic so the text should include some hooks for this. Also this 'phase' starts only a handful of years after the Silchester rebellion and there should be some treatment of the typical consequences that might have flowed from that (attainders, vacant estates being farmed by crown-appointed stewards, hostages etc).

The other aspect of factionality that could bear mentioning if the book goes down this route is that the 'standard' Pendragon group of 3-5 Vassal Knights constitutes a faction all by itself given that they make up somewhere between 1/6th and 1/4 of the county's landed gentry. Some discussion of how this might play out given the outlined factional map plus ways to handle alternatives to the default 'all for one' group where player knights straddle the factional divide would be neat.

Regards
Luke

I would also very much like to see the Book of Salisbury to be divided in Phases like the GPC.


+1

Good points, Luke. I can't believe I missed mentioning the Orkney / Ganis rivalry, when my own campaign is heading towards that with Agravaine as the new Earl of Salisbury.

There are some goo ideas in this thread
Alot of the things in here are already in the draft of the book, or in my plans
As always, I want to ask:

Who will help me put this together?

Volunteers who want the fame and fortune of being a KAP contributor, contact me via email.