Dark Albion: the Origin Thread

[RPGPundit]

Dark Albion: 1464

Events in this year:

-Anthony Woodville is knighted by King Edward of York.  He is the brother of Elizabeth Woodville whom the King met the previous year and has begun to secretly court.

-John de Vere is pardoned for his father's previous treason and is granted his hereditary title of Earl of Oxford.

-Baron Tiptoff (the magister baron, nicknamed "the butcher" for his gleeful executions of lancastrians during his time as warden of the Tower of London) is now appointed Chancellor of Eire Land.


-In Arcadia, the Pontifex Pius II dies.  He is replaced by Paulus II (who was not a priest but a generous merchant of the city who buys his way into the pontificacy).


-The Battle of Hedgley Moor: 5000 troops under Lords Somerset, Roos, Sir Ralph Percy and the Magister Lord Henry Grey (an 8th level magic-user, who is an expert on summoning demons in battle) raise up a rebellion in the North; they are faced by John Neville (Baron Montegu) with 6000 men. Battle begins with archery exchange. Montagu marches across 1500ft of archery fire and the lancastrians are relatively rapidly broken when Roos' men scatter under his assualt; Sir Ralph Percy stays behind to fight and dies (his last words: "I have saved the bird in my bosom"); Roos is captured and executed. Somerset and Henry Grey escape.

-Lord Cobham dies of natural causes.

-The Battle of Hexham: 4000 men under Montegu (with the Earl of Wiltshire, younger son of the Duke of Buckingham) face the Lancastrian rebellion (led by Somerset, with Lord Hungerford) in the north, near Devil's Water Creek. Yorkists hit them hard charging down from higher ground and half the Lancastrian force (under Edmund de Roos) flees almost immediately; the other half are surrounded and many drown in the Devil's Water.  Somerset is captured and executed. Sir William Tailboys tries to escape with the Lancastrian war chest (containing over 2000 Pounds!), but he's captured and executed. Roos tries to escape but is captured and beheaded at Newcastle.

-Baron Montegu, for his honor in battle, named Earl of Northumberland (the traditional title of his family's enemies, the Percies); Lawrence Booth, who had once been the personal Cleric to the Lancastrian Queen Margaret, is now named personal cleric to King Edward for his loyalty and bravery in fighting the rebels.


-The Earl of Warwick has been engaged in prolonged diplomatic efforts to arrange a marriage between Edward of York and the Princess Bona of Lorraine; this alliance would end up creating a firm union between Burgundy, Lorraine, and Albion and would allow these nations to dedicate themselves to a war of extermination against the hated Frogmen (and thus the potential rescue of Albion's territories on the Continent).  Unfortunately, Warwick had not been informed that Edward has been secretly married to Elizabeth Woodville.  When he learns of this Warwick is livid, but is unable to prevent the young king from squandering the chance for a lasting alliance just to marry a woman of low birth.  It is the first time that Edward does not agree to Warwick's wishes.  Elizabeth Woodville is crowned Queen.

-Sir John Wenlock, along with Lord Hastings recaptures Dunstanburgh castle in the north from rebels.



In Our Campaign

This year in the campaign was spent fighting the battles of Hedgley Moor (where Lord Grey cemented himself as the NPC Wizard-nemesis of the party, once again having a demon wreak havoc over the Yorkist lines and once again the PCs are unable to catch him) and Hexham (where the PCs spent the better part of the battle trying to find Grey, who they assumed would be there but wasn't; only to find out in that process about the Lancastrian war chest, and then engage in a desperate rush to be the ones to capture it; for the King of course, but not before skimming quite a bit off the top).
In this latter battle the cleric PC became truly famous as the "Fire Cleric", for his tactic of casting resist fire on himself and his horse, dousing himself in oil and lighting himself (and his trained horse) in flames and only then charging with holy wrath at the rebel forces.

Various of the PCs got rewarded for their heroics in these northern rebellions, though none so much as Sir Henry Woodville who was made Warden of the Eastern Marches, quite a major title.  It no doubt helped that Woodville was the brother of the woman the King was secretly courting.

That brings us to the other element of the campaign year: that the PCs got to see first hand the intrigues of the Yorkist court; on the one side because of Sir Henry being a PC who is brother to Elizabeth Woodville (and got to see with some anxiety how the king was sneaking around to hang with his sister, and how his dad and older brother were desperately trying to manipulate the situation into a royal wedding, which they eventually got).  On the other side, because many of the other PCs are servants or agents of the Kingmaker, the Earl of Warwick, who they failed to warn about the affair quickly enough, and who they then got to see seriously failing for the first time in a decade of game time; not failing but with a backup plan, not failing but strategically, just totally sideswiped by a gang of people he barely considers above peasants (the Woodvilles are nobility but very low and fairly recent nobility).  And of course they got to see his absolute fury at this (perhaps more than he should have made evident to the King), and they could see that there was no way that Warwick would let this stand.  Many of them, including the PC playing Sir Henry Woodville, were fearing that more than one Woodville would be dead before this was all over.

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[RPGPundit]

Dark Albion Update: 1465


Setting Events: 1465

-William Booth, Archbishop of York, dies of natural causes. His successor is Robert Neville.

-In Arcadia, the Collegium of Cardinals try to limit Pontifex Paulus II's powers, he resists the move.

-Pasha Radu Bey (of the Turk Empire) engages in campaign of forced conversions to the god of the crescent moon in conquered Wallachia.

-Philip of Burgundy makes a great campaign against the Frogmen, comes within eyeshot of Paris; but is wounded. Even so he retook huge swaths of territory from the hated Frogs.

-A band of adventurers go to Scots Land, manage to capture the Mad King outside Berwick and bring him back to Albion; Queen Margaret and her remaining court flee Scots Land for Lorraine where they are welcomed by Prince Louis of Lorraine and the Princess Bona, Louis' daughter who had been promised in betrothal to King Edward of York only to be shunned in favor of Elizabeth Woodville.

-Henry Stafford (age 10), Duke of Buckingham, is married to Catherine Woodville (age 7).

-Queen Elizabeth is pregnant.

-Thomas Beckington, commander of clerical order in Albion, dies in battle after three decades of campaigns against the Frogmen in Calais; his successor is Robert Stillington

In Our Campaign:
One of our characters, "the Doctor" (no, not the timelord, but the most famous physician in Albion by this time in the campaign), has a son.
In this year the characters traveled across the Wall to Scots' Land, where they went on a quest to the Valley of the Jarls; long thought a cursed place by the Scots, it was a burial ground for ancient Northmen Kings, but recently a horde of undead had come streaming out of it attacking the Scots clans, and threatening to reach the Wall.  The Player Characters investigated the tombs and found there a cult of the dreaded demon Dispater.  After much adventure they managed to destroy the cult and end the threat.
The PCs were also the "band of adventurers" in our campaign who managed to capture the Mad King, who had been living in Berwick in exile with the remnants of the Lancastrian forces.  They also faced the Mad King's Magister, Lord de Grey, who had been an ongoing nemesis for the PCs, but he managed to evade them yet again!
Finally, it bears repeating that one of the PCs (who had rolled a 'high noble' social status) is a member of the Woodville family; at this time in the campaign he was enjoying his family's rise to power and influence after his sister's marriage to the (Yorkist) King.   At the same time, he was facing a lot of problems in his own sense of security; he had previously been a member of the Earl of Warwick's (the Kingmaker's) circles, but after the Woodvilles upset his grand schemes and ended up taking the King's favor away from him, Warwick swore revenge against all of their family.  The Kingmaker doesn't act in haste, however, he was playing the long game. This meant that the poor Sir Henry Woodville (the PC) had to spend a long time watching his back, never knowing when revenge might strike.


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Currently Smoking: Raleigh Hawkbill + Image Perique

[RPGPundit]

The following were important events in the Dark Albion setting year 1466:

-King Edward of York's daughter Elizabeth (his first child) is born.

-A huge Turk army invades the Border Kingdoms, but local resistance stalls their advance in their planned conquest of the Continent.

-In Arcadia, the  Pontifex Paulus II enters into political conflicts and machinations with the Cardinals, events escalate to the point some assassinations of important church figures take place.

-In Albion,  Henry Courtenay, younger brother of the attaindered Earl of Devon, and Sir Thomas Hungerford, son of the attainedered Baron Hungerford, plot to raise an insurrection in Devon; they are discovered, arrested and executed.

-Sir Pierre De Braap, Frogman champion and hidden agent in Albion, makes contact with a group of degenerate Frogmen living in an ancient Elven temple complex in the swamps of The Wash.  They attempt to summon/control a Dragon to destroy London and kill the King, but are thwarted by a group of adventurers.

-King Casimir of the Commonwealth wins the 13 year war with the Teutons, which ends with the Treaty of Thorns, with Teuton lands becoming a vassal state of the Commonwealth.

-Richard Wydeville (the King's father-in-law) is made Earl Rivers; Anthony Woodville is made Baron Scales, Henry Woodville made Lord Rockingham (Anthony and Henry are the King's brothers-in-law). Thus the King continues to increase honor and favor on the low-nobility family he has married into.

-in other Solstice honors, the King makes his 14-year old brother Prince Richard Crookback (Duke Gloucester) a provisional Knight of the Star. Earl Rivers (that is, Richard Wydeville) is made Knight of the Star and Lord Treasurer. Sir John Wenlock is made Captain of Calais. Lord Hastings is made ambassador to Burgundy.


In Our Campaign:
The PCs main adventure that year involved the aforementioned story about the degenerate frogmen in Albion's only large swamp and their attempt to summon a dragon.  That was a very challenging adventure for them but luckily they very quickly realized that time was of the essence, and managed to stop the frogmen BEFORE the dragon was summoned.  This is not the type of campaign where things just get suspended in space/time until the PCs show up for it to be perfect climactic moment.

In addition to this, politics loomed large in this year.  The PCs were mostly agents and allies of the now-marginalized Earl of Warwick ("the Kingmaker"), who had enormous influence over King Edward (having been chief architect of getting him on the throne in the first place) but had lost all that when the King happened to fall in love with Elizabeth Woodville and secretly married her without Warwick's knowledge.  Now the Woodvilles have been using their new status to full advantage, securing favorable marriages for themselves, getting the Queen to influence King Edward to give them new titles, lands and offices, and the paterfamilias Earl Rivers now controls the crown treasury!
This all led to some conflict within the PC party mainly because one player character was Sir Henry Woodville, brother to the new Queen; and now he found himself pretty strongly on the opposite side of his former patron Warwick and his soon-to-be-former-friends in the rest of the party.

Not all the politics was at the federal level; one of our PCs, Doctor Ralph (who everyone calls "the Doctor") used his prestige as an adventuring physician and one of the most clever medical minds in all the civilized world to create a Guild of Physicians, a new livery company that would control and regulate the trade in the medical profession in London.  The Guild would of course be under his control.
The player running the Doctor has been quite clever, I think, in NOT pursuing a knighthood or seeking to play the game of high politics. He realized that he could do much more following the example of certain significant historical commoners that accumulated great wealth and influence in all those things that the nobility felt was beneath them.  

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[RPGPundit]

Events: 1467

-Grand Duke Philip of Burgundy dies. Charles of Burgundy is his heir. He immediately retakes the city of Liege from the Frogmen, earning himself the title of "Charles the Terrible".

-The Turk invade Border Princes again but are beaten back after failing to win the siege of Kruje.

-William Canynges abandons the mayoralty of Bristol, and becomes a monk.  The shipping magnate had for almost three decades been the wealthiest of (and one of the most powerful) commoners in Albion, controlled the city of Bristol, and had played a significant role in supporting the Lancastrian cause.  With the failures of the Lancastrians, he had found himself in a politically precarious position and may have abandoned his power and wealth in fear for his life.

-Pontifex Paulus II arrests and tortures many of the pontifical secretaries after accusing them of conspiring against him. He accuses "learned men" and especially the magisterium of attempting to subvert the church toward heathenism; magisters are persecuted in Arcadia, but find refuge in the Commonwealth.

-Geoffrey Boleyn becomes sheriff of London. Bishop Thomas Rotheram (nicknamed "the Scot") becomes Keeper of the Privy seal (replacing Prince-Bishop Ralph Neville of Durham). Robert Stillington, clerical high commander, becomes Lord Chancellor (replacing Oxford Magister-Chancellor George Neville).

-Humphrey Dacre, younger brother of Baron Dacre, returns to Albion and is pardoned for his involvement in the Lancastrian cause.



In Our Campaign:

In this relatively slow year our players managed to engage in an investigative adventure where they learned about a hidden temple to an ancient Elven Death Cult.  I was stunned when they wisely decided NOT to open the still-intact magical seal holding whatever was in the temple trapped within.  It made for a much shorter adventure than I expected, but was definitely the safer and wiser choice for the PCs, so I was sure to reward them with plenty of XP (they did, after all, "defeat" the great evil within by not letting it out in the first place).

I should point out also that Geoffrey Boleyn was the older brother of one of our player characters; and yes, both were implied to be ancestors of the future queen Anne Boleyn.


RPGPundit

[Turanil]

This campaign setting looks really cool! This would merit to be turned into a whole book, with a fine layout reminding of medieval grimoires. I have so many B&W illustrations from ancient artists now in the public domain (more than 400), that there would be some possibilities there...

I also just wanted to point out something: If I were to run a campaign in this world, I would slightly change the religion's name to Church of the Unconquered Truth. Well, I suppose that "Unconquered Sun" was inspired by Sol Invictus, a Roman deity. But in using "Truth" instead of "Sun", I think it would sound slightly more Christian-like, so more appropriate (to a pseudo England setting); it would be perfect with the concept of the "Infalibility of the Pope"; above all, it would be perfect to represent a religion that has no qualms about ruling others' thinking, and tell them what they are supposed to believe or not. I don't know, but this sounds more arrogant and fascist, as I see it befitting the Catholic Church of medieval era. (Just my two cents of course.)

[RPGPundit]

This campaign setting looks really cool! This would merit to be turned into a whole book, with a fine layout reminding of medieval grimoires. I have so many B&W illustrations from ancient artists now in the public domain (more than 400), that there would be some possibilities there...

I would love if it could one day be so! Its unfortunate that there's been no development along those lines.
Possibly someday...

I also just wanted to point out something: If I were to run a campaign in this world, I would slightly change the religion's name to Church of the Unconquered Truth. Well, I suppose that "Unconquered Sun" was inspired by Sol Invictus, a Roman deity. But in using "Truth" instead of "Sun", I think it would sound slightly more Christian-like, so more appropriate (to a pseudo England setting); it would be perfect with the concept of the "Infalibility of the Pope"; above all, it would be perfect to represent a religion that has no qualms about ruling others' thinking, and tell them what they are supposed to believe or not. I don't know, but this sounds more arrogant and fascist, as I see it befitting the Catholic Church of medieval era. (Just my two cents of course.)

Well, I didn't really want the church to be miserable and fascist.  Yes, it is based on the Sol Invictus, which in this setting ended up replacing christianity as the post-pagan religion (it came pretty close in real life).   And my theory is that if Sol Invictus had won over the Christian religion, what it would have looked like by the 15th century would actually have still been REMARKABLY similar to what 15th century catholicism looked like (because so much of that ended up being more about stuff borrowed from roman imperial bureaucracy and culture).
Anyways, as a religious historian, I know that there was a bit more complexity to medieval catholicism than just "arrogant and fascist".

[Turanil]

I would love if it could one day be so! Its unfortunate that there's been no development along those lines.
Possibly someday...

Frankly, I would be interested in doing this. I can do book layout, and I have that huge amount of public domain illustrations collected on the Internet over the years. It was one of my project to make a fantasy medieval pseudo European setting, that I wanted to call Shadow-Earth. However, I have so many projects in front of me, that I thought of discarding this Shadow-Earth. On the other hand, if all the text is already there, I would be interested in doing the layout (I would like to try to do a book with a pseudo medieval aspect).

By the way, is something already fleshed out for France and the Frogmen? Would it be possible to add some Averoigne inspired region in that country?

[Turanil]

Here is the cover I did for the Shadow-Earth project. I just changed the texts:



For an interior book layout: just get a look at my work on Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. Note that I would try to make it look more like a medieval book with illuminating, than I did for FH&W. Also, 95% of the illustrations would be medieval public domain art, plus a few pics that I bought (cliparts) on RPGnow. I have more than 400 pics available (only problem, I don't know what they historically represent apart from an obvious medieval castle, armor, and such). This would be fine for a 130 pages long book. I can do maps too.

[Turanil]

I should update by mentioning I've seen the earliest draft of this and it looks very promising so far.

RPGPundit

Sorry, but I did not read the thread in its entirety until now. If someone else is making a book of this already, no need that I step in...

So, tell me what the current state of this project, and if my proposal is of any interest.

[RPGPundit]

Frankly, I would be interested in doing this. I can do book layout, and I have that huge amount of public domain illustrations collected on the Internet over the years. It was one of my project to make a fantasy medieval pseudo European setting, that I wanted to call Shadow-Earth. However, I have so many projects in front of me, that I thought of discarding this Shadow-Earth. On the other hand, if all the text is already there, I would be interested in doing the layout (I would like to try to do a book with a pseudo medieval aspect).

By the way, is something already fleshed out for France and the Frogmen? Would it be possible to add some Averoigne inspired region in that country?

This could be very interesting. Send me a PM about it.
The earlier contact about it involved just making a simple PDF for it, and appears to have just petered out, quite a while ago.

There's a bit more detail than has been shown publicly for "France".  At the start of the campaign, the only human-controlled regions are Lorraine and Burgundy.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Here is the cover I did for the Shadow-Earth project. I just changed the texts:



For an interior book layout: just get a look at my work on Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. Note that I would try to make it look more like a medieval book with illuminating, than I did for FH&W. Also, 95% of the illustrations would be medieval public domain art, plus a few pics that I bought (cliparts) on RPGnow. I have more than 400 pics available (only problem, I don't know what they historically represent apart from an obvious medieval castle, armor, and such). This would be fine for a 130 pages long book. I can do maps too.

The cover looks extremely cool, but it would be cooler if it featured the Earl of Warwick.  Or failing that, Richard III.

[Turanil]

The cover looks extremely cool, but it would be cooler if it featured the Earl of Warwick.  Or failing that, Richard III.

I guess you mean in replacement of the guy in plate armor? (In fact a painting representing Gilles de Rai, eventually burnt at the stake for performing hideous act of cruelty / black magic.)

Edit: okay, I found a pic of Richard III. Here is what I did: two variants...

[RPGPundit]

Hmm, we can work on it. Anyways, I like your artistic ideas.  The cover could also theoretically be something simpler, may be the York & Lancastrian Roses.

Or in a Greyhawk-homage the heraldic shields of the various noble houses of the War of the Roses surrounding a period map of England?

[RPGPundit]

My blog entry for today:

A Publisher for Dark Albion? Plus: The True History of Frog Men and the Paris Swamp!

So for the first time in a while there's been some interesting news regarding the possibility of some kind of publication of quality being made out of my awesome homebrew campaign, Dark Albion.   As you can see if you click the link, you can already get a ton of info for this setting for free, on the thread dedicated to it. But I have quite a bit of extra material that is not out there, and that plus a professional look plus a hopefully affordable PDF or PoD would I think make Albion a really great addition to the stable of OSR fantasy settings.  While I have run the Albion campaign for LotFP, I would make any actual book system-neutral for use with any OSR-type game.

The news, in any case, that after a long period of languishing, the author of the Fantastic Heroes & Witchery RPG, a fairly gonzo-sided OSR game, is looking to make Dark Albion happen.  He's even made a few same mock-ups of what a cover might look like, which you can see on the Albion thread.

The irony is that "Albion" may end up being published by a Frenchman.  Have the English lost all their pride?  Some might actually ask if the French have, mind you, given how the Albion setting portrays the area we'd know as France as "Frogland", ruled by vicious and evil chaos-worshiping Frogmen!

Strangely enough, this hasn't really seemed to bother most French fans of the setting.  Whereas the Scottish consistently get worked up about how they're kilted barbarians.  I guess we see which of the two have the better sense of humour.

Keep in mind that much of Albion is not just a fantasy but a fantasy based on popular perceptions of the English; so Ireland is a kingdom of barbarians and faeries, Scots Land a frigid land of kilted brutes, and France of course is literal Frog-men.  While England itself is a classist land of serf-oppression and corrupt feuding power-mad aristocracy.

Over the course of the campaign "Frogland" has been somewhat developed and elaborated upon; for example, it became clear that the Frogmen are only the inhuman minority who rule over a Frankish human majority that are treated like slaves.  Their chief territory is Paris. They govern through the help of their advanced (chaos) magick and human collaborators.

(the "Paris Swamp", a term which apparently has confused some of the French fans, is a play on  "Lutetia", which in Latin means "city of swamps or mud")

But before the Frogmen emerged from the Paris Swamp and conquered most of those lands, there were human kingdoms there, of Frankmen, some of whom were ancestors to the Anglish Kings by marriage (hence their claim of rule over Frogland and their constant wars with them these past 150 years).  The lands of Burgundy, and Burgundy's vassal Lorraine, are still ruled by humans.  And later in the timeline of the campaign, the lands of Brittany rise up in human rebellion against the Frog overlords, and with the help of Albion and Burgundy gain their freedom (or rather, they did in my campaign; in yours things might go much worse).

As to the Frogmen's origin, I would hearken them back to ancient times, before humans dominated the world.  We know from Albion's prehistory that when humans were created as slaves for the ancient Elves, it was the Elves and the Dragons who ruled over most of the world, the two not always friendly with each other.  I would like to think that things like lizardmen and frogmen were created by Dragons in the Dragons' image, to act as slaves and ground troops to oppose the humans and goblinkind that the Elves had created.

You'll note that in The Wash, Albion's own swamps, there are also Frogmen, who are primitive and degenerate, rather than the sophisticated variety that rule Frogland.  They were probably left over there from the time of the Dragons.

Anyhow, even if it will take a Frenchman to make Albion a reality, I'm excited by the prospect.

RPGPundit

[Turanil]

Hmm, we can work on it. Anyways, I like your artistic ideas.  The cover could also theoretically be something simpler, may be the York & Lancastrian Roses.

Or in a Greyhawk-homage the heraldic shields of the various noble houses of the War of the Roses surrounding a period map of England?

Well, I am slightly disappointed you don't like the cover (especially the one with the black and red letters).

As for a map with heraldic shields all around, it was intended to be on the backcover. I will post what I formerly did for "ShadowEarth." Imagine the same treatment, but with a map of England and heraldic shields.