Jim Patching
United Kingdom
Cardiff
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“Nous Sommes venus vous tuer atrocement avec des objects pointus tranchants!” yells Sir Hugo pleasantly at terrified French peasants as he and our brave knights ride through a pretty little Normandy village.
King Arthur’s army has successfully captured the nearby port of Barfleur and whilst the main army deploys (a slow and laborious process) our knights have been sent out to scout the nearby countryside, keep their eyes peeled for French troops and to try to win the hearts and minds of the locals. Sir Owen is badly wounded and has to stay at the port to recuperate, so one of his household knights (sir Anthony of Carmine) rides in his stead. Unfortunately the wily Sir Le Beau hasn’t been seen for several days and so our knights resort to taking Sir Hugo (one of the idiotic assassins of King Clovis of France’s son) as their translator.
“Vous avez le visage d’un phacochere et je tiens a le gifler a plusieurs reprises!” says Sir Hugo to a scandalised-looking French washer woman.
“You are telling them that we mean them no harm, aren’t you?” asks Sir Hywel cautiously.
“What? Oh oui, oui; sure, sure,” says Sir Hugo reassuringly, turning in his saddle to point at a French peasant man and then drawing his right index finger slowly across his own throat.
Marshal Arkan narrows his eyes at Sir Hugo. “Social interaction may not be my forte,” he says darkly, “But that didn’t look like a friendly gesture to me.”
“Oh non, non, they love that round ‘ere,” says Sir Hugo breezily, before yelling at a small French child “S’enfuient avant que nous vous cuisinez et que vous mangez.” The small child bursts into tears. Marshal Arkan shakes his head and under his breath mutters “I hate that guy.”
The party move on from the village and find themselves riding down a rutted track through a vineyard. It’s quite overgrown, with sprawling vines and vegetation on both sides of the trail. Suddenly, without warning, a posse of French pathfinders spring from the undergrowth, taking the knights of Salisbury completely by surprise!
The pathfinders set upon the knights with wild abandon. Sir Hywel is knocked unconscious and dragged from his horse. Arkan, Breakius, Anthony and Hugo find themselves fighting for their lives against multiple opponents. The pathfinders aren’t equipped as well as our knights but they’re skilled and show no fear. At the height of the struggle Sir Le Beau emerges from some shrubbery, a loaded crossbow in one hand, a tousled French peasant girl in the other. He shoots a pathfinder through the neck with his bolt and aids the other knights in chasing off the surviving pathfinders.
Covered in blood and breathing heavily, Sir Breakius looks at Sir Le Beau and barks “Where the hell have you been?”
“I have been reconnoitring my way around the underpants of many French peasant girls,” says Sir Le Beau offhandedly. “Since Sir Hywel looks as though he’s going to need to head back to Barfleur for recuperation I shall take his place in your party.”
He plants a kiss on the peasant girl’s lips before hoisting himself into the saddle of one of the dead pathfinder’s horses. “I’ll never forget you Isabelle,” he says to the French girl meaningfully.
“My name’s Eleanor!” she snaps indignantly.
“Oui,” says Le Beau over his shoulder, “Come on men, let’s ride!”
The First Battle
The word on the grapevine is that the French have gathered together an army with whatever troops they have to hand in the Normandy area and are marching on Barfleur with all speed in an attempt to push the Britons back into the sea. Marshal Griflet (nominal head of the British forces) quickly marshals his troops in response to this and marches out to meet the incoming French army.
The French force is led by a respected Frankish general named Rochefort. The two armies clash in a brief but bloody battle. The knights of Salisbury play it safe, choosing to engage poorly armed militia and archers rather than battle hardened units for most of the battle, but when they spot a clear path through to Rochefort and his unit they waste no time in charging through and engaging the French commander. Disappointingly Rochefort puts up rather lame resistance and even more disappointingly for him is swiftly killed by a rampant Marshal Arkan.
The first clash of arms goes to the Britons and the Franks are left in disarray. It wasn’t all plain sailing though – Sir Le Beau took a grevious wound and has been sent back to Barfleur to recuperate with Sir Hywel and Owen (where he shockingly tries to convince one of the nun orderlies at the hospital to allow him the use of a private room so that he can entertain French peasant girls in order to ‘aid his recuperation’. Of course the nun refuse the outrageous request and certainly isn’t swayed by the fact that Sir Le Beau informs her that she ‘has a nice ass’.)
After the successful battle the British army moves out deeper into French territory. It splits into three sections – a west flank led by Arthur himself, whose main role is to subdue the rest of Normandy; An east flank, whose main role is to guard the approach to Barfleur and make sure the port isn’t lost; And finally a central force, led by Marshal Griflet and containing our knights, whose role is to march down the river Seine towards Paris.
The March on Paris
Marshal Griflet’s force marches down the Seine, accepting the surrender of many cities and castles on the way. Several small battles are fought which all go well for the Britons, although Marshal Griflet is badly wounded in one of them (and only saved from capture by the heroic efforts of Arkan, Breakius, Anthony and Hugo) and Sir Kay is forced to step in and take command of the army.
Presently the army stops at the castle of a French knight named Sir Clement. Although he is a Frank he is no friend of King Clovis. He invites Sir Kay and his closest knights into his home for a banquet. During the feast a horn is blown in alarm outside the castle. The banquetiers rush outside where a sentry is pointing at a fleeing horseman dressed in black who has some sort of bundle over his horse’s saddle.
“The black knight has kidnapped Lady Francis!” cries the sentry in dismay.
“Have no fear,” says Sir Breakius, “We shall rescue the maiden.”
Our knights pelt after the black knight, riding hell for leather. Their horsemanship skills clearly far outstrip those of the Black Knight and they soon find themselves gaining on the vagabond. Just as it seems they must surely catch the rogue his 'horse' suddenly spreads wings and launches into the air.
“That’s not fair!” exclaims Sir Breakius.
“I want me one of those...” says Marshal Arkan admiringly.
“What’s that sign hanging from the back of the beast?” asks Sir Anthony, peering at the dwindling figure.
The winged beast carries the Black Knight and his captive to a nearby tower on a hill. Our would-be rescuers ride for the fortification as fast as they can, only to find themselves confronted by some of the Black Knight’s minions – bandits armed with spears and dressed in dark leather armour. The Black Knight really shouldn’t have bothered sending these losers out to defend his tower as the knights of Salisbury slaughter them to a man, barely breaking into a sweat in the process.
The knights station their horses and enter the building. The ground floor is laid out with a sumptuous feast. The knights have only just filled their bellies at Sir Clement’s castle and so march past the feast un-tempted … all except Sir Breakius who greedily snatches up a current bun and takes a bite out of it. With a crash, he drops to the floor fast asleep.
“Someone sort that out,” sighs Marshal Arkan, gesturing at the snoring knight.
Sir Hugo steps up. How to wake up a sleeping companion? Dash water across their face? Shake them awake? Not Sir Hugo – he sets about physically assaulting Sir Breakius, punching him repeatedly in the face. After three heavy blows, Breakius snaps out of his enchanted sleep.
“What the hell are you doing?!” he yells, spitting out a tooth.
“What does it look like? Waking you up,” states Sir Hugo.
“Ugh, my face. Have I got a back eeyyyiiee!” Breakius shrieks as Hugo punches him once again in the face. “What the shit!?”
“Just making sure you’re awake.”
“I’m awake, now get off me you arsehole”
The knights make their way up the stairs to the second floor. The chamber here is strewn with fabulous gifts and treasures. These wonders might tempt the average man to stop and marvel at them, but our knights have encountered similar magical traps before and they know not to linger and covet the riches, lest they never leave the chamber … well, all except Sir Breakius who dives into a pile of gold coins and starts writhing around in them, giggling with delight.
“Hugo,” sighs Marshal Arkan, pointing at Sir Breakius resignedly.
“Oui, d’accord,” says Sir Hugo as he grabs Sir Breakius by his lapels and once again starts beating him about the face. The enchantment on Breakius is strong and it’s not until his nose is flattened against his left cheek and both his eyes are black before Sir Hugo heroically breaks him out of the charm.
The knights ascend to the third floor where they find a room adorned with religious ornamentation from every religion they’ve ever heard of. They pause for a moment, expecting some sort of trap, but this floor seems genuinely benign.
THWACK!
“Ouch!” yells Sir Breakius. “What the hell was that punch for? I haven’t done anything!”
“Just making sure you don’t get up to any funny business,” says Sir Hugo.
The knights move up to the fourth floor, which is completely empty bar a doorway with a lady in white stood in front of it.
“I can open the door for you,” says the lady. “But if I do you must swear to pass through it, no matter what you see beyond it.”
“How bad could it be?” reasons Sir Anthony of Carmine. “I mean, as long as it doesn’t open up into a theatre showing a Twilight film I’m pretty sure we can handle anything that might be beyond that portal.”
The lady nods her head and opens the door, revealing a staircase swathed in roaring flames. She steps through into the fire, her clothes and skin catching alight. In seconds she is reduce to a skeleton. She turns and beckons the knights forward before collapsing into a pile of blackened bones.
“Ah … after you,” says Marshal Arkan to Sir Hugo.
Hugo bolts up the flaming staircase, quickly followed by Sir Breakius, Sir Anthony of Carmine and Marshal Arkan. It must be something about the valorous nature of these knights, but the flames don’t harm them at all. The stairs lead up onto the roof where they are confronted by The Black Knight. The Lady in White stands there too, fully intact, as does the kidnapped Lady Francis.
“You’ve bested my tower so you must be valorous knights,” intones the Black Knight. “I now challenge you each to single combat, in the order you ascended the flaming staircase.
Sir Hugo is up first. He fights well, even managing to land a critical strike on the Black Knight, but the Black Knight is far too skilled an opponent and quickly sends Sir Hugo crashing to the ground unconscious.
Sir Breakius steps up next.
“What the hell happened to you?” asks the Black Knight.
“Dur Dudo dashed die dace in,” mumbles Sir Breakius though his puffed up, broken face.
“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you just said,” says The Black Knight. “Have at you!”
This is clearly not Breakius’s day as the Black Knight impales him on the end of his sword with what is surely a mortal blow. Breakius’s almost lifeless body drops to the floor, whereupon something magical happens. The Lady in White drags him to one side and using some sort of mystical powers heals him of his mortal wound.
“Next!” says The Black Knight.
Sir Anthony of Carmine steps up to the plate but the Black Knight takes him out using a duplicate of the death blow he used on Sir Breakius and once again the Lady in White is forced to use her powers to save a knight from certain death.
Last but not least is Marshal Arkan. “Prepare to meet your match,” says The Black Knight boldly. The Marshal narrows his eyes. “You’ve already rolled two critical hits during this fight,” says Arkan pointedly. “By my calculations you’re all out of criticals now. Let’s get it on!”
It appears as though the Marshal was correct as the Black Knight appears to have exhausted himself defeating the other three knights. Arkan’s duel with him is disappointingly short and one-sided and after mere moments the Marshal defeats him.
Our knights are victorious! Marshal Arkan strides from the tower, Lady Francis in his arms. Behind him, his three battered companions crawl and stumble along in his wake. Being a companion of Marshal Arkan 'The Widowmaker' is a hard life.
*
You can find the previous adventures of the Cardiff Boys on this Geeklist.
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i seemingly remember stabbing Rochefort up, shouting curses at Hugo to F' off
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Ben Vincent
United States
Vancouver
Washington
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Arkan has got to be about 60 by now. I'd love to see his character sheet.
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SabreRedleg wrote: Arkan has got to be about 60 by now. I'd love to see his character sheet.
Where the Widowmaker's concerned there's only one stat you need to know:
Sword 38.
It'll be 40 when we get round to doing the winter phase for the year since he passed 20k glory this year.
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Jim Patching
United Kingdom
Cardiff
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Yeah, Arkan's character sheet isn't as insteresting as you might think. And he wonders why he keeps getting tackled by multiple opponents!
Even with a sword skill of 38 he's still a complete wuss when it comes to leading his troops in battle:
GM: OK, the battle's opened up before you. There's three enemy units nearby - a group of elite French mercenaries who seem to be holding their section of the battlefield together through their heroic stand; a unit of French knights wearing new-fangled halfplate armour (which would be well worth acquiring); and finally a group of peasants armed with breadsticks doing shit all to influence the battle. Who do you want to go for.
Arkan: The peasants
GM: Er .... you sure you don't want to go for the knights? They're tough, but look at that armour they're wearing.
Arkan: We're going for the peasants
(In at attempt to instill some sort of heroism on the field of battle the GM brings in Earl Robert of Salisbury)
Earl Robert: Are you sure that's the right decision Arkan? It seems strange sending the cream of Salisbury knighthood against a group of dirty peasants.
Arkan: This is a numbers game Robert. We go for the peasants.
I know as a GM you should be impartial but I so want to kill Arkan now 
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Posted Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:40 pm
