Good Gentles,

In the Pendragon milieu, would PKs’ hunting down the local bandit band after a snowstorm be
a) Expected,
b) Unusual and worth an Energetic check at least, or
c) “Are you NUTS?”

Hunting and camping in snow-covered woods is a cold, wet business. OTOH, in wintertime bandits:
- Leave tracks in the snow
- Have less foliage to hide behind
- Need to light smellable/visible campfires for warmth
- Would suffer serious losses from exposure if the PKs find their campsite/foodstocks.

For these reason Romans and Byzantines would sometimes have winter campaigns against tribesmen (especially swamp-dwellers). But would it be appropriate in a Pendragon game?

Thank you very much.

Or, bandits live in their peasant hovels during the winter with their families. This could even be on a player knight's land.

Bandits provide a huge opportunity for variability in adventures. I would imagine every bandit group is different. Some may even have knights gone mad from fumbled passions! If you want a Winter adventure, go for it. I would, however, impose some penalties and possibility of catching pneumonia.

As the Enchantment kicks in at 495-ish we started regularly having Winter activity at the very beginning of every session. Our house rule is that a gaming session begins on New Year Day and ends on December 31. Family events and faerie activity is becoming common in the early part of the year.

THe difficulty lies in that everything that all the ostacles that the bandits would face, would also have to be overcome by any hunters. It might even be worse for the hunters if they are on horseback. It7s hard to gallop through snow drifts.

Often bandits would know the terrain very well, and could retreat into the forests, or into someoneleses lands.


I suspect bandit huniting was done, but probably wasn't as succcessufl as it was for the Romans. Unless the PKs caught the bandits by surprise, the bandits would probably just relocate.

But, from a PKs perspective, driving the bandits off from his own land might be an acceptable goal.

Those are good points. A winter attack would clearly be a challenge -- much more interesting that way.

Thanks!

Just want to add that the Teutonic Knights and their crusader guests also hunted guerrillas during the winter; the Baltic region tended to be so boggy and forested that the Balts and Slavs could easily stay away from the heavily-armored Christians, but as Gideon says, during the winter the foliage fell, the bogs froze over, and the snow left tracks.