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Pendragon (role-playing Game)
''Pendragon'', or ''King Arthur Pendragon'', is a Tabletop role-playing game (RPG) in which players take the role of knights performing chivalric deeds in the tradition of Arthurian legend. It was originally written by Greg Stafford and published by Chaosium, then was acquired by Green Knight Publishing, who in turn passed on the rights to White Wolf Publishing in 2004. White Wolf sold the game to Stewart Wieck in 2009. Wieck formed Nocturnal Media, who updated and reissued the 5th edition originally published by White Wolf. In 2018, it returned to Chaosium. After it was published in 1985, ''Pendragon'' won several industry awards, and reviewers highly recommended it; in following years, it was included in several "Best of" industry lists. Setting Like several other RPGs from Chaosium (most notably '' Call of Cthulhu''), ''Pendragon'' has a literary basis, in this case the fifteenth-century Arthurian romance, '' Le Morte d'Arthur''. It studiously avoids fantasy RPG cliches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jody Lee
Jody A. Lee (born June 18, 1958, in San Francisco, California) is a professional fantasy artist from San Francisco known best for her book cover illustrations. Biography Lee was born June 18, 1958, in San Francisco, California. She graduated from the Academy of Art College in 1980 with a BA in Illustration. She lives in Morro Bay, California with her husband and two children. Career In 1980 Lee relocated to New York to work as a professional artist. '' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' says she has provided book cover art for "many fantasies with carefully designed, brightly coloured, and pleasantly decorous covers". Authors she has worked with include Mercedes Lackey, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, and others. She also painted role-playing games' covers such as ''RuneQuest'' (third edition, 1984) and ''Pendragon'' (first edition, 1985). She illustrated the 1991 and 1996 book covers for ''A Wrinkle in Time'', as published by Dell Yearling. Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cult Following
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase. A common component of cult followings is the emotional attachment the fans have to the object of the cult following, often identifying themselves and other fans as members of a community. Cult followings are also commonly associated with niche markets. Cult media are often associated with underground culture, and are considered too eccentric or anti-establishment to be appreciated by the general public or to be widely commercially successful. Many cult fans express their devotion with a level of irony when describing entertainment that falls under this realm, in that somethi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ability Score
In the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game, game mechanics and dice rolls determine much of what happens. These mechanics include: * Ability scores, the most basic statistics of a character, which influence all other statistics * Armor class, how well-protected a character is against physical attack * Hit points, how much punishment a character can take before falling unconscious or dying * Saving throws, a character's defenses against nonphysical or area attacks (like poisons, fireballs, and enchantments) * Attack rolls and damage rolls, how effectively a character can score hits against, and inflict damage on, another character * Skills, how competent a character is in various areas of expertise * Feats, what special advantages a character has through natural aptitude or training Ability scores All player characters have six basic statistics: * Strength (STR): Strength is a measure of muscle, endurance and stamina combined. Strength affects the ability of characters to l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courtly Love
Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love is originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love changed and attracted a larger audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice. Courtly love began in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment, "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joust
Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horse riders wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each participant trying to strike the opponent while riding towards him at high speed, breaking the lance on the opponent's shield or jousting armour if possible, or unhorsing him. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The participants experience close to three and a quarter times their body weight in G-forces when the lances collide with their armour. The term is derived from Old French , ultimately from Latin "to approach, to meet". The word was loaned into Middle English around 1300, when jousting was a very popular sport among the Anglo-Norman knighthood. The synonym tilt (as in tilting at windmills) dates . Jousting is based on the military use of the lance by heavy cavalry. It transformed into a specialized sport during the Late M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coat Of Arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to an individual person, family, state, organization, school or corporation. The term itself of 'coat of arms' describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail 'surcoat' garment used in combat or preparation for the latter. Rolls of arms are collections of many coats of arms, and since the early Modern Age centuries, they have been a source of information for public showing and tracing the membership of a noble family, and therefore its genealogy across time. History Heraldic designs came into general use among European nobility in the 12th century. Systema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. Although it is derived from the Latin word ''feodum'' or ''feudum'' (fief), which was used during the Medieval period, the term ''feudalism'' and the system which it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), François Louis Ganshof (1944). ''Qu'est-ce que la féodalité''. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as ''Feudalism'', with a foreword by F. M. Stenton, 1st ed.: New York and London, 1952; 2nd ed: 1961; 3rd ed.: 1976. describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations which existed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a leader of the post-Roman Britons in battles against Saxon invaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He appears in two early medieval historical sources, the ''Annales Cambriae'' and the '' Historia Brittonum'', but these date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, and most historians who study the period do not consider him a historical figure.Tom Shippey, "So Much Smoke", ''review'' of , ''London Review of Books'', 40:24:23 (20 December 2018) His name also occurs in early Welsh poetic sources such as '' Y Gododdin''. The character developed through Welsh mythology, appearing either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sub-Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the Anglo-Saxon settlement. The term was originally used to describe archaeological remains found in 5th- and 6th-century AD sites that hinted at the decay of locally made wares from a previous higher standard under the Roman Empire. It is now used to describe the period that commenced with the evacuation of Roman troops to Gaul by Constantine III in 407 and to have concluded with the Battle of Deorham in 577. Meaning of terms The period of sub-Roman Britain traditionally covers the history of the area which subsequently became England from the end of Roman imperial rule, traditionally dated to be in 410, to the arrival of Saint Augustine in 597. The date taken for the end of this period is arbitrary in that the sub-Roman culture continued in northern England until the merger of Rheged (the kingdom of the Brigantes) with Northumbria by dynastic marriage in 633, and longe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastiche
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it. The word is a French cognate of the Italian noun , which is a pâté or pie-filling mixed from diverse ingredients. Metaphorically, and describe works that are either composed by several authors, or that incorporate stylistic elements of other artists' work. Pastiche is an example of eclecticism in art. Allusion is not pastiche. A literary allusion may refer to another work, but it does not reiterate it. Moreover, allusion requires the audience to share in the author's cultural knowledge. Both allusion and pastiche are mechanisms of intertextuality. By art Literature In literary usage, the term denotes a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ars Magica
''Ars Magica'' is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' – a historically grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Middle Ages are factual reality (a situation known informally as the "medieval paradigm"). The players' involvement revolves around an organization of magi and their allies and foes both mundane and supernatural. The game was originally developed by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, with its first edition published in 1987. The current edition (the game's fifth) was written by David Chart, and published in 2004 by Atlas Games, who continue to develop new material for it. ''Ars Magica'' was one of the first examples of a troupe system. Early editions recommended that the players collaborate to create the campaign world and story with: * Each player having an opportunity to be Story Guide. (e.g. alternating by play session, 'chapter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
