Now is the time to play at nobility, with festivals and coats of arms and all, thanks to the Pendragon RPG’s new Noble’s Handbook.
A big part of the fantasy of playing a noble is all the strange pageantry and politicking that comes along with it. You think “I’m going to be a member of a noble house,” and the mind drifts to characters like Lady Olenna Tyrell, or Lord Tywin Lannister – people who sit in well-appointed little rooms talking about upcoming festivals and wars and deciding the shape of the future of the kingdom.
And that’s exactly what you can get into with the Noble’s Handbook, out now for the Pendragon RPG (at least in PDF form, there have been slight delays to physical copies in some regions of the world).
The Noble’s Handbook
The Noble’s Handbook is, in many ways, a great recipe for making a life or adding more immersive elements to your games of Pendragon. A big part of the fun of the Arthurian RPG is life in Camelot. But to do that, you have to figure out how to depict that in the game.
In the case of the new book, that means rules for running markets and manors as well as your castles and creeds. It’s the kind of small stuff that evokes comparison to games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel, though it’s worth pointing out that Pendragon did it long before either game came out.
But it’s not just playing a noble. Pendragon is a system for playing across generations. You can chart a course for your family’s dynasty, thanks to rules for having heirs and following their exploits as time flows in your campaign. As the seasons turn, you can see Camelot change around your house, and you decide how your house will change to match it.
“The Pendragon: Noble’s Handbook is packed with new rules markets, manors, castles, family events, creating Player-ladies, and of course, horse breeding! [It] expands the core game experience with a wealth of character options, subsystems, and expansion to the popular Winter Phase.
This is exactly the kind of thing that can add depth to an ongoing campaign. Coincidentally enough, Chaosium is gearing up to publish an adaptation of The Great Pendragon Campaign for the modern era. That’s the rise and fall of Arthur, starting with The Boy King.
All that’s coming soon. But for right now, you can snag the Pendragon Noble’s Handbook in PDF form from Chaosium and DriveThruRPG.
Camelot awaits!
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Source: Bell of Lost Souls
