Pendragon Character Creation Booklet

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I have updated the King Arthur Pendragon Character Creation Booklet I posted over a year ago. (How did a year go by!!!)

The character creation rules are straight from the King Arthur Pendragon core rules with three exceptions from Book of Knights & Ladies:

  1. I have added the Regional Trait modifiers from Book of Knights & Ladies, because I like them and I want to emphasize for the players how different regions will influence a Knight’s Traits. (Even if they are all from Salisbury, such modifiers will make them aware different places have different modifiers.)
  2. I used the Cymric Luck Table from Book of Knights & Ladies to replace the Heirlooms table from the King Arthur Pendragon core rules. (The Cymric Luck Table is stranger and more evocative.)
  3. Finally, I incorporated the Culture Skills from Book of Knights & Ladies. For Cymric knights this means that all the starting knights have “Spear Expertise.” Spear Expertise combines the skills of Lance, Spear, and Great Spear under one skill, allowing Cymric knights to advance faster in those three skills.

I also added page of simple ordinaries for the players to use as models for their knight’s coat of arms.


We will still need to refer to the King Arthur Pendragon core rules when making a character. (For example, we’ll be using the Family History rules.)

But I wanted a document that would offer the players easy reference to details they would need when making their characters. Character creation is one of those places where things can really bog down and I want it to go as smoothly has possible at the table.

2 thoughts on “Pendragon Character Creation Booklet

  1. I’m curious about your reasoning for increasing the total points required for a chivalry bonus to 96. Do you think it is necessary even after removing British Christianity as an option?

    • Honestly, I go back and forth on this. While removing British Christianity goes a long way to resolving the issue, Greg seems to have really cared about moving the points from 80 to 96 because he wanted the Chivalry bonus to be hard to get.

      I ran the math and ultimately agreed with his concerns. If we are adding six Traits for a total 80 points, that means the Traits need only average 13.3 points each. This means a knight doesn’t need to have ANY Famous Traits and still be Chivalrous. I simply don’t think that works.

      Meanwhile, if you bump the total to 96 points, the average of each Trait is 16. This means on average all Traits need to be Famous. But also they don’t need all be Famous. If some of the Traits are above the threshold (17+), then other Traits don’t need to be Famous. And since several Traits should be above 16 for a knight to really earn his Glory (in my view) one or two Traits from the list can hover around 12-14 points.

      That all makes sense to me if we want being Chivalrous to be a BIG DEAL. And I think the reward of Chivalry is a Big Deal.

      Finally, if one thinks 96 is too high, I would suggest splitting the difference and raising it to 88. This lifts the average value needed for the Traits to 14.3.

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