18 September 2011

Uther to Arthur, a Playlist

So, my friends know me as an avid gamer. I don't play those video doodads, though I do dabble in historic strategy games on the computer. My real passion is table-top fantasy role playing games (RPGs.) I've been playing since 1979 with a few short breaks. My usual role is as the Referee, Dungeon Master, Game Master, whatever the name might be. The campaigns tend to be intense, both from a combat and an emotional perspective.

The story is paramount and I daydream at length in preparation for the next session while exercising or walking home from work. Right now we're 30 sessions (a long time, about a year and half of folks getting around a table with dice regularly) into a campaign that retells the romantic fantasy of King Arthur.

We started with the players as vassal knights, the tanks of the battlefield in chainmail and shield. Uther Pendragon was king. The player knights were with Merlin when Excalibur came from the Lady in the Lake. The years passed and Uther was assassinated, Arthur hidden by Merlin. What followed is a period of destruction as chaos ruled the land and Saxons poured in from the continent. Last session a young Arthur pulled the sword from the stone at the climax of the session. From start to finish it was a roller coaster of courtly intrigue, warlords dominating the battlefield and unbridled passions. Quite a game!

Each year in the game thus far has a theme song that inspired the story for that year. Below is the song list I've used thus far in the campaign, a list of beloved (if not always great) music that conjures a brutal world of the Dark Ages emerging into chivalric knighthood. For those who know the game system, this is The Great Pendragon Campaign for the system King Arthur Pendragon (version 5.1.)

485 AD - Living in a brutal age


486 AD - Recover Excalibur from the Chiltern Witch


487 AD - Scouting the Franks


488 AD - Invasion of Bayeaux


489 AD - Angles Overrun Caer Colun


490 AD - Battle of Lindsey


491 AD - Duke Gorlois Rebels


492 AD - Abduction of Prince Arthur


493 AD - Death in Caer Colun


494 AD - Uther's Illness


495 AD - Death of Uther


496 AD - Anarchy


497 AD - Enemies On All Sides


498 AD - Expansion Into Rydychan


499 AD - On the Brink of Destruction


500 AD - Angles and Their Big Mofo Battle Axes


501 AD - Do or Die


502 AD - Wave After Wave of Saxons


503 AD - Faerie Forest


504 AD - Raven Queen


505 AD - Struggling for Survival
Shut It Tight - by T-Bone Perkins, worth the search on the internet

506 AD - Lost in Faerie


507 AD - Faerie Court


508 AD - All is Lost


509 AD - The Pettiness of  Humanity


510 AD - The Sword From the Stone


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