Sir Walter was born to Lady Beatrice, Duke Thierry's youngest (and favorite) aunt.  She was a vibrant, intelligent woman, who was immensely popular in court, and always the center of attention at any event.  Unfortunately, she died in childbirth, and Walter's father simply never recovered, certainly not enough to serve as any sort of proper parent.  As such, Walter's cousin, Duke Thierry, served as a surrogate parental figure, looking after the young man and ensuring that he got a squirehood with a prominent knight under his command.

For his part, Walter is a lot like his mother and has become something of a fixture at court.  Whether it's his good looks, skill at political intrigue, familial connections, or some combination thereof, is up for debate, he's always a welcome sight.  While he's hardly the most adroit knight in terms of martial prowess, he manages not to embarrass himself.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:13, Wed 06 June 2018.

When does this puppy crank up?

Probably a few days, once you discuss your characters and have that all sorted out

 I think everyone can write a description of their character for other to read. Beyond that, not sure what there is to discuss.

Someone's eager!

Well given that one of his stated goals is that we have a variety of character concepts, I think part of the idea is to talk and make sure that we don't end up with four copies of the same character.  So let's talk!  Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sir Bailain is very much a martial knight, no?  Does he favor any weapons in particular?

Another one is backstories.  I'm always a fan of weaving them together, and that's something we can do as well!  Sir Bailain, if you're the son of one of the Duke's retainers, then the odds are good that Sir Walter knew you, especially since the two are the same age.  I could easily see them having known one another, or even having played together a bit as kids.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:51, Wed 06 June 2018.

 I suppose.

 I am done for the night. My mood went into the dumpster today due to a real world matter. apologies. Things will be better tomorrow

I like the ideas so far.  I don't mean that all the characters should fit perfectly together, but rather have a decent level of knowledge of one another.  In this game, I would say that all the young noblemen of the county know each other, and being close in age you all would probably know each other fairly well.  You are not necessarily related to one another  (though you could be, if you wished), and your homes are spread throughout the county, so it may be some doing to visit one another.

For more mechanical bits, look at the descriptions of the Advantages and Disadvantages, and the pre-made knights to begin picking which you like.  I anticipate there might be some overlap, but I would prefer only one of each to be taken, which is why I want you all to talk through things

No worries friend, bad days happen to us all!

And my prior comment still stands, as in this case, it makes perfect sense for the two to know each other fairly well since Walter spent quite a bit of time with his cousin growing up.  If that's something you're interested in fleshing out, let me know?

And yeah, I'm a fan of Knight B, mostly.  In a perfect world I'd tweak him a bit, so we'll just have to wait and see what our fearless leader allows in that regard.  And as I said for Advantages/Disadvantages, Optimates, and Cardinal Sin - Indulgent (He likes his parties).

Also, we're waiting to hear on good Sir Baldwin and Dietrich!
This message was last edited by the player at 11:27, Thu 07 June 2018.

The Boss here let me know things were starting up again.  I'm happy to resurrect my original illiterate brute of a knight.  I suppose he needs a name though... how about Gontran?

Huzzah!  Hello good Sir Gontran!  I like the concept quite a bit!  Plus it'll be good to have someone who's quite adept at swinging sharp bits of metal, 'cause Walter sure as heck isn't overly adept at it.

As I said, if you want to hammer out a way to connect the two characters in terms of history, that's quite good by me!  Perhaps our two families were close, since yours was formerly wealthy?

It could very well be that our families were close, and that you and your family know of our recent misfortunes.  I'm thinking that Gontran was probably kept away from important formal events due what his parents perceived as his "simple nature".  He's likely to get on better with peasants than with proper knights.

That said, my goal is NOT to play someone who is disruptive and problematic... Gontran will generally know when to keep his mouth shut and how to be polite.  The intricacies of politics and court will be lost on him, but he'll shave and bathe before finding a quiet corner to loom in during.

Hopefully Gontran will be able to contribute on the battlefield, but someone else will have to be in the spotlight for more social or intellectual endeavors.  My usual character is a high-skill, charismatic support character... Gontran should be the exact opposite of that.

Probably looking for something along the lines of Sample Knight E, although I imagine that if he has Dancing, it's folk-dancing.

Luckily Walter doesn't judge!  After all even brutes have their uses! you never know when it pays to be good friends with someone capable of bench pressing a horse!

I imagine as kids Walter probably didn't want anything to do with the boring formal stuff going on, and so the pair did exactly what kids do... that is to say, got into trouble.  Maybe Walter's smart mouth got him in trouble, some of the other kids were causing problems and Gontran clapped them upside the head, rather decisively ending things.  In return, Walter smoothed things over with the adults, and the pair avoided getting in trouble.  Queue friendship?

It's fun to step outside your comfort zone every now and again, trust me, I get it!

Several of you have asked about different technical aspects or character creation points.  As a general rule, I would say that I am rather liberal with allowing players to design their characters (and holding, and equipment, and NPCs) to their liking, so long as it does not give any imbalancing bonuses.  Saying that you are a cousin of the duke, when you take the Optimates advantage, is perfectly fitting.  If you need to make up an NPC mother to facilitate that, fine - that is what NPCs are for.

Also, usually squires and retinue of your character are NPCs but you can generally write for them, as they are typically acting either directly or indirectly from your PC's direction

Perfect!  As long as we're telling good stories, that's what I care about!

I may tweak Walter's story to keep his mother alive, we'll see.  Mulling over some story ideas in my head.

I don't own the book/pdf for Paladin, but I have been listening to podcasts from a guy running it. It seems that they went back to a more random character creation versus the point buy of 5e Pendragon. (I prefer random)

I was really excited listening to the creation process...quite a few new steps compared to Pendragon including where you apprenticed/squired at. It led to player connections as well since, if two players rolled the same option during that step, then they squired in the same court and knew each other.

By the way, looking forward to this and hoping we are doing character creation like what I've been listening to!

 Look, Sir Bailian has a twin brother. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:18, Thu 07 June 2018.

 Bailian is a Bastard and orphan, that the Duke took into his household as a ward of the Ducal court. (Can we say John Snow) I thought of the snow angle after I make the background. Oh well.

 Bail grew up in the shadow of the Dukes castle,and he took to the martial arts like a duck took to water. But it does make sense he would know of you folks.

You know what's funny?  I much prefer point buy as opposed to random, but that's just me!  Nominal balance between players and all that.  But then again, I've always very pro-choice when it comes to backgrounds etc.  Play the character you have in mind, not the one that the tables chose for you.

That said, anything you can tell us about Sir Maixent?

In reply to Sir Bailain de Chasser (msg # 40):

I will change the avatar. At work so just chose a placeholder.

Honestly, in all of my many years of experience, point but leads to cookie cutter characters. However, I will always do what the GM decides. I just liked the level of randomness that was in the podcasts, rank of your father, where you were educated, etc with each step giving modifiers to abilities, traits, passions, and skills.

Background, still working on a few things. When I get home from work, I will try to expand on it. Was hoping to get to roll all of the background stuff and then write up history but not sure how we are handling char gen yet.

I am looking forward to this getting started as well. I like the fact that it Pendragon, but it is set in a different area besides Britain.

I will work on posting the full stats for the Sample Characters, but you will also have a few discretionary points to customize the characters.  And, because we are using mostly pre-made characters, I am open to other mods that fit the situation better.

I don't always like doing full character creation for Pendragon/Paladin, especially on line, because it is very finicky and I would rather not get too bogged down in it.

Color me sad as I really wanted to stretch my roleplay skills by playing what the dice dictate.

However, I will look through the sample knights and get an idea of what looks interesting to me.

:)

EDIT: Sample Knight B might be closest to what interests me...with a little tweaking.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:44, Thu 07 June 2018.

Of course,  I post above that I like knight B, only to reread through the posts and see someone else wanted that as well.  Back to contemplating life...

Consider this a chance to stretch your roleplaying skills? ;)

C is a fairly good all around knight, so it's not the worst second choice.  Besides, there's always room for tweaking things!