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Seeing as I'm loath to pay £20 for a book that was not only £12 when it came out, but is also half as old as I am, I'm afraid I have to pick the brains of you sorry lot wonderful people.

I'm trying to do some research for writing and I've been met by a few minor snags - most of which are down to preference.

First off, questing knights are usually mentioned as using two-handed weapons (I believe in the game the questing vow refers to great weapons?) instead of the usual lance of a knight of the realm. Is this restriction to two-handed weapons set in stone? Must all questing knights use double-handed weaponry? Or do they choose it simply because to kill the bigger gribblies they go after they usually need a bigger sword? I'd prefer to be able to have a character be able to use his shield, so it falls to something like an axe, perhaps at most a hand-and-a-half sword, or even a morning star. If he does really need a 2H weapon, I could probably make a shield work if one of the other questions gets the answer I need.

Secondly, if a knight of the realm receives a vision from the Lady and starts his quest, does he just up and go "I had a vision" and everyone instantly believes him? Or would there be doubt? I assume the Lady doesn't exactly appear and shout "this guy's questing for me now just so's you know" to everyone he passes, so given how politics and all sorts work, especially when it comes to systems like the Bretonnian one, could a declaration of questing be declared as false by the knight's enemies? Would such an accusation be instantly treasonous, or would they at least await his potential return as a grail knight to prove the accuser wrong?

Thirdly, I've read that knights can be banished, would a knight's enemies ever try and set him up to get him banished, be it for vengeance, or just for their land?

Fourthly, Damsels of the Lady are often known to take Grail Knights as companions or lovers, but would they ever become a companion of one below that station? Could the Lady order it be done? Are questing knights even allowed companions, or would something like that be decided by the Lady in her choice to offer the knight the grail? Just how much free will does a Damsel get in her service to the Lady, and a questing knight in his... questing?

Fifthly, and finally for now, how much power or political clout would a Duke's or Marquis' daughter have? I know women aren't ranked very highly in Bretonnian society, but even the women of powerful families should command some level of power, however secretly. Would they be ranked any higher if they had shown magical aptitude, and had been sent to the Empire's colleges instead of serving the Lady (I've read that wealthy families can do this, but may be wrong)? Would a female wizard who had returned from her college training command the same level of respect and freedom as a Damsel or Prophetess of the Lady? I assume that they wouldn't have to serve under her, since she never became a servant? Would she possibly command more respect, perhaps as a result of her ties to the colleges, or even to influential members of the Empire or the other realms?


Thank you in advance for any useful info on this.

1. Questing Knights are forbidden to use the lance whilst they are out questing. I'm assuming they get the two handed swords because they are easier to use from horseback and they fight a lot of big nasty fellows that haunt the world, a big sword is probably your best bet. If course they will use just about anything, expect for a lance or a bow, which all nobles are forbidden to use in combat (although hunting with a bow is perfectly okay)

2. They pretty much up and leave. A grail knight is able to sense when someone is lying, so lying about it would only serve to bring humiliation, which would only bring about a redemption quest, which is basically the same thing. They give up their post to their steward until they return, even if they are a duke. Although most dukes are all grail knights already, but you don't have to be both.

3. A proper Bretonnian noble would probably not stoop so low so as to get a fellow noble banished. Plus Bretonnians are known to be a little bit dim, and might not actually think of going so. Plus a grail knight would sniff it out, or be incapable of doing such an act.

4. Of course they would, it depends on love and how much money the knight in question has. As for a questing knight, they normally leave behind all possessions, wife included.

5. They can have quite a bit of power and it is foolish to underestimate a Bretonnian woman. As most men are busy fighting, you can end up with situations where the woman has the better education. If a young child shows magical ability, a damsel will arrive in the middle of the night and take them. The boys disappear, the girls come back as damsels. As the empire and Bretonnia don't always see eye to eye it might cause issues. But many families would rather see their son survive as a mage tHan be taken by the lady.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, if you want more information read this, it's better than the actually army book
http://warhammerarmiesproject.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/warhammer-bretonnia-unofficial-8th-ed.html?m=1

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Seeing as I'm loath to pay £20 for a book that was not only £12 when it came out, but is also half as old as I am, I'm afraid I have to pick the brains of you sorry lot wonderful people.

I'm trying to do some research for writing and I've been met by a few minor snags - most of which are down to preference.

First off, questing knights are usually mentioned as using two-handed weapons (I believe in the game the questing vow refers to great weapons?) instead of the usual lance of a knight of the realm. Is this restriction to two-handed weapons set in stone? Must all questing knights use double-handed weaponry? Or do they choose it simply because to kill the bigger gribblies they go after they usually need a bigger sword? I'd prefer to be able to have a character be able to use his shield, so it falls to something like an axe, perhaps at most a hand-and-a-half sword, or even a morning star. If he does really need a 2H weapon, I could probably make a shield work if one of the other questions gets the answer I need.

When a Knight takes up the quest he must give up his lance and shield as they are basically for want of a better way of putting it, his ability to own land and command armies in actual physical items, they are as much symbols of the Knight's vow to protect his land and his people as they are tools of war. The use of a great sword is similarly the symbol that he has given up his rights, duties and privelages as a land owner (i.e. everything that makes him a knight in Brettonian society) to fulfil his quest to find the grail

#1 - The lack of restrictions makes it a lot easier; I'll probably go with the morning star I wanted, then.

#2 - Are Grail Knights infallible? Or could outside sources cloud their judgement and abilities?

#3 - I thought most Grail Knights protected the Lady's holy sites as opposed to governing the land; do you have an official source for most Dukes being Grail Knights? Or even official information on just how pious the governing nobles are? (Given how they treat the peasantry, I assumed that they'd at least have the potential to be corrupt, power and money-hungry. Surely if the Grail Knights were in charge they'd see respect offered to everyone regardless of class?)

#4 - That makes things a bit easier.

#5 - Since it's unlikely that a woman could be a Grail Knight, could the wife or female family member of a powerful noble wield enough power to influence the rankings of other nobles? Tying into the potential for Grail Knights to be fallible, would it be doable to go behind their backs or commit acts in secrecy if aided by something like the powers of Chaos or particularly powerful magic as opposed to simple human deception?

How much of the linked unofficial book actually contains real fluff, and how much of it is extrapolated or imagined fan-fluff?



#1 - Given that my only reference thus far has been Lexicanum I might be wrong, but it mentions that the typical gear of a questing knight includes a shield; is this incorrect/outdated? I'm not bothered about what the weapon stands for, only if it's set in stone that a two-handed weapon must always be used. Given that you mention the only restricted weapon is a lance, and coupled with welsh's answer, would it simply be uncommon for a questing knight to take up a different weapon as opposed to it being outright disallowed?

#2 - That doesn't solve the issue, I'm afraid. I'm going to have to expose a bit of what I've planned, and say that the knight in question was set up to be banished as part of an ongoing... mutual disliking between noble families. Could the knight's taking up of a questing vow on top of being banished be painted by his enemies as an admission of guilt, since he'd have lost everything from the banishment anyway so wouldn't exactly be impressing anyone by giving up what little he had left, if anything. If manoeuvred correctly, it could be seen as a dishonourable act from his entire family, only strengthening the position of the knight's enemies and lending their perceived honour more credence. The knight doesn't matter politically, but his actions could be the loosening of a vital stone in his family's honourable foundations.

#3 - This sort of ties in to my question to welsh about a noble's and grail knight's fallibility when faced with things like magic-based deception. Going off the family feud, it just needs to be possible for one family's nobles and knights to perhaps have their less virtuous selves given a gentle push, and their actions concealed, perhaps by an outside force powerful and skilled enough to worm their way in (which links into question 5). I don't doubt that ordinarily many nobles wouldn't stoop so low, and that punishment would be great, but it just needs to be possible, even if not THAT plausible.

#4 - Since you and welsh seem to be in agreement on this, it helps immensely.

#5 - Going back to the link from question 3, would it be possible for a wizard sent to the Empire for training to return covertly? Perhaps remaining hidden amongst people that can be manipulated and acting as a sort of puppet-master? I've no intention of them hiding near the King or well-known nobles, but would, for example, magically-aided deception help someone hide amongst their own family? They are less likely to be suspicious, and it of course carries heavy penalties if a family is found to be illegally harbouring one of their own, so they have a reason to keep their mouths shut about anything they might manage to figure out. This also ties a little into the fallibility of grail knights and what welsh said about them being able to detect lies; would sufficiently powerful magic be able to disguise this?


A fair amount of these questions really comes down to "how plausible is 'magic' as an excuse for ____", I suppose.

If you take into account the most recent events in Bretonnia, Nobles are far from too noble to do silly things like maneuver politically, as Bretonnia just had a civil war between Louen's Bastard son and Giles returned. I'd say it's entirely plausible for a family to maneuver to have an opponent banished and other downright unpleasantries, it's not like it'd be the first time that evil had corrupted a noble family, I mean, look at Mousillon (pardon my spelling of all these French names)

 Gromgor wrote:
If you take into account the most recent events in Bretonnia, Nobles are far from too noble to do silly things like maneuver politically, as Bretonnia just had a civil war between Louen's Bastard son and Giles returned. I'd say it's entirely plausible for a family to maneuver to have an opponent banished and other downright unpleasantries, it's not like it'd be the first time that evil had corrupted a noble family, I mean, look at Mousillon (pardon my spelling of all these French names)

Have you got the reference for this handy? Is it in the army book? Or is there anywhere else I can read up on it?

As for Mousilion, all Lexicanum is able to say is that it's 'lost to the Kingdom'; is there anywhere I can read more about what happened there?

Avatar 720 wrote:

#1 - The lack of restrictions makes it a lot easier; I'll probably go with the morning star I wanted, then.

#2 - Are Grail Knights infallible? Or could outside sources cloud their judgement and abilities?

#3 - I thought most Grail Knights protected the Lady's holy sites as opposed to governing the land; do you have an official source for most Dukes being Grail Knights? Or even official information on just how pious the governing nobles are? (Given how they treat the peasantry, I assumed that they'd at least have the potential to be corrupt, power and money-hungry. Surely if the Grail Knights were in charge they'd see respect offered to everyone regardless of class?)

#4 - That makes things a bit easier.

#5 - Since it's unlikely that a woman could be a Grail Knight, could the wife or female family member of a powerful noble wield enough power to influence the rankings of other nobles? Tying into the potential for Grail Knights to be fallible, would it be doable to go behind their backs or commit acts in secrecy if aided by something like the powers of Chaos or particularly powerful magic as opposed to simple human deception?


#1 - Given that my only reference thus far has been Lexicanum I might be wrong, but it mentions that the typical gear of a questing knight includes a shield; is this incorrect/outdated? I'm not bothered about what the weapon stands for, only if it's set in stone that a two-handed weapon must always be used. Given that you mention the only restricted weapon is a lance, and coupled with welsh's answer, would it simply be uncommon for a questing knight to take up a different weapon as opposed to it being outright disallowed?

#2 - That doesn't solve the issue, I'm afraid. I'm going to have to expose a bit of what I've planned, and say that the knight in question was set up to be banished as part of an ongoing... mutual disliking between noble families. Could the knight's taking up of a questing vow on top of being banished be painted by his enemies as an admission of guilt, since he'd have lost everything from the banishment anyway so wouldn't exactly be impressing anyone by giving up what little he had left, if anything. If manoeuvred correctly, it could be seen as a dishonourable act from his entire family, only strengthening the position of the knight's enemies and lending their perceived honour more credence. The knight doesn't matter politically, but his actions could be the loosening of a vital stone in his family's honourable foundations.

#3 - This sort of ties in to my question to welsh about a noble's and grail knight's fallibility when faced with things like magic-based deception. Going off the family feud, it just needs to be possible for one family's nobles and knights to perhaps have their less virtuous selves given a gentle push, and their actions concealed, perhaps by an outside force powerful and skilled enough to worm their way in (which links into question 5). I don't doubt that ordinarily many nobles wouldn't stoop so low, and that punishment would be great, but it just needs to be possible, even if not THAT plausible.

#4 - Since you and welsh seem to be in agreement on this, it helps immensely.

#5 - Going back to the link from question 3, would it be possible for a wizard sent to the Empire for training to return covertly? Perhaps remaining hidden amongst people that can be manipulated and acting as a sort of puppet-master? I've no intention of them hiding near the King or well-known nobles, but would, for example, magically-aided deception help someone hide amongst their own family? They are less likely to be suspicious, and it of course carries heavy penalties if a family is found to be illegally harbouring one of their own, so they have a reason to keep their mouths shut about anything they might manage to figure out. This also ties a little into the fallibility of grail knights and what welsh said about them being able to detect lies; would sufficiently powerful magic be able to disguise this?

A fair amount of these questions really comes down to "how plausible is 'magic' as an excuse for ____", I suppose.

#1: In the army book a questing knight has a shield and a hand weapon so you can have him using a morning star and still have a great sword slung on his back. He would have to use the great weapon according to the rules but if you are writing a story you can do what you want.

#2: Since the lady is the nobilities god and this is still a medieval society if a knight said he got a vision and was leaving nobody would question it. Do forget it is the knight himself who gives up everything and starts wandering. As for your plans in the story it is an actual good idea but with one small problem in that the taking up of the questing by a knight would most likely protect his family from dishonour, it is kind of like the how a samurai who commits ritual suicide basically erases the shame from his family. That said a particularly savvy individual could uses it against his family with the right words and powers behind him(her). Also the knights are powerful but still mortal and therefore fallible.

#3: The nobles are still human and so can stop to great lows so if one noble wanted to get rid of another but couldn't do it in a duel he could get him banished. It would be a very dishonorable thing to do and if found out would most likely get him and his family killed but I'm sure there are those who would risk it. Most Grail knights do end up protecting holy sites but some go back to their homes and take over again, in fact the king himself is required to be a grail knight. I should point one that one of the reasons that Bretonnia is so gakky is that their religion and culture basically demands it. The lady is a goddess only for the nobles and the peasants lacking honor are not allowed to pray to her and as such receive no respect from the nobles. They live in squalor because they have a huge 90% tax rate and it is seen as the duty and right thing for the peasants to pay this and the nobles to take it. So you can have a grail knight who is the most noble and just in the world but will not prevent the local lord from taking his commoners to death because it is his duty.

#4: Damsels live sort of outside the class structure and in a way can do almost anything she wants.

#5: If a noble lady go herself into so chaos stuff and was using its power to influence nobles it could be very easy to do it in secrecy. Now it is said that children with magic are taken in the dead of knight by the servants of the lady, the girls often reappear many years latter as damsels and the boys are never heard from again it is considered a great honor for a child of a noble family to be taken by the lady but once again the nobles are still human and it is said that occasionally if a noble family realizes a child (especially a boy) has magical powers that they will send them to the empire to learn to control their powers and to protect them. However if they do this it is unlikely that they could come back as the people are extremely distrustful of magic from people that aren't envoys of the lady. So the idea that a noble girl was sent to the empire to learn magic eventually came back and using forbidden chaos magic to hide her identity and control the nobles is not a bad one.

Basically in this setting the right use of magic, especially chaos magic, will allow you to get away with a lot.

Avatar 720 wrote:

 Gromgor wrote:
If you take into account the most recent events in Bretonnia, Nobles are far from too noble to do silly things like maneuver politically, as Bretonnia just had a civil war between Louen's Bastard son and Giles returned. I'd say it's entirely plausible for a family to maneuver to have an opponent banished and other downright unpleasantries, it's not like it'd be the first time that evil had corrupted a noble family, I mean, look at Mousillon (pardon my spelling of all these French names)

Have you got the reference for this handy? Is it in the army book? Or is there anywhere else I can read up on it?

As for Mousilion, all Lexicanum is able to say is that it's 'lost to the Kingdom'; is there anywhere I can read more about what happened there?

This happened in the recent End Times: Nagash book under the Bretonnia section.
Try http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Mousillon for Mouillon.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Gromgor wrote:
If you take into account the most recent events in Bretonnia, Nobles are far from too noble to do silly things like maneuver politically, as Bretonnia just had a civil war between Louen's Bastard son and Giles returned. I'd say it's entirely plausible for a family to maneuver to have an opponent banished and other downright unpleasantries, it's not like it'd be the first time that evil had corrupted a noble family, I mean, look at Mousillon (pardon my spelling of all these French names)

Have you got the reference for this handy? Is it in the army book? Or is there anywhere else I can read up on it?

As for Mousilion, all Lexicanum is able to say is that it's 'lost to the Kingdom'; is there anywhere I can read more about what happened there?

End Times: Nagash book as stated earlier, but it's also in the new wood elves army book.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Gromgor wrote:
If you take into account the most recent events in Bretonnia, Nobles are far from too noble to do silly things like maneuver politically, as Bretonnia just had a civil war between Louen's Bastard son and Giles returned. I'd say it's entirely plausible for a family to maneuver to have an opponent banished and other downright unpleasantries, it's not like it'd be the first time that evil had corrupted a noble family, I mean, look at Mousillon (pardon my spelling of all these French names)

Have you got the reference for this handy? Is it in the army book? Or is there anywhere else I can read up on it?

The End Times: Nagash.

Basically, the Bretonnian King gets killed by his bastard son and the entire country gets into civil war.

So not only is this info contained in a £50 E-BOOK(!), but it's also only available on iPad. Fun.

Is there any chance of a quick run-down on what happened in Bretonnia? Is there any information on how it all happened? What the aftermath was? Etc.

 KingGarland wrote:


#1: In the army book a questing knight has a shield and a hand weapon so you can have him using a morning star and still have a great sword slung on his back. He would have to use the great weapon according to the rules but if you are writing a story you can do what you want.

#2: Since the lady is the nobilities god and this is still a medieval society if a knight said he got a vision and was leaving nobody would question it. Do forget it is the knight himself who gives up everything and starts wandering. As for your plans in the story it is an actual good idea but with one small problem in that the taking up of the questing by a knight would most likely protect his family from dishonour, it is kind of like the how a samurai who commits ritual suicide basically erases the shame from his family. That said a particularly savvy individual could uses it against his family with the right words and powers behind him(her). Also the knights are powerful but still mortal and therefore fallible.

#3: The nobles are still human and so can stop to great lows so if one noble wanted to get rid of another but couldn't do it in a duel he could get him banished. It would be a very dishonorable thing to do and if found out would most likely get him and his family killed but I'm sure there are those who would risk it. Most Grail knights do end up protecting holy sites but some go back to their homes and take over again, in fact the king himself is required to be a grail knight. I should point one that one of the reasons that Bretonnia is so gakky is that their religion and culture basically demands it. The lady is a goddess only for the nobles and the peasants lacking honor are not allowed to pray to her and as such receive no respect from the nobles. They live in squalor because they have a huge 90% tax rate and it is seen as the duty and right thing for the peasants to pay this and the nobles to take it. So you can have a grail knight who is the most noble and just in the world but will not prevent the local lord from taking his commoners to death because it is his duty.

#4: Damsels live sort of outside the class structure and in a way can do almost anything she wants.

#5: If a noble lady go herself into so chaos stuff and was using its power to influence nobles it could be very easy to do it in secrecy. Now it is said that children with magic are taken in the dead of knight by the servants of the lady, the girls often reappear many years latter as damsels and the boys are never heard from again it is considered a great honor for a child of a noble family to be taken by the lady but once again the nobles are still human and it is said that occasionally if a noble family realizes a child (especially a boy) has magical powers that they will send them to the empire to learn to control their powers and to protect them. However if they do this it is unlikely that they could come back as the people are extremely distrustful of magic from people that aren't envoys of the lady. So the idea that a noble girl was sent to the empire to learn magic eventually came back and using forbidden chaos magic to hide her identity and control the nobles is not a bad one.

Basically in this setting the right use of magic, especially chaos magic, will allow you to get away with a lot.

#1 - That's that then. Thanks.

#2 - Surely it'd only absolve the family of dishonour if he returns successful? Given how many questing knights outright don't return at all, and the fact that he's only taking up his vow after he's lost everything, it'd be a lot easier to assume he won't be successful and that his 'vow' was simply a selfish, last-ditch effort to retain some sort of honour in the eyes of the nobility despite his crimes. Once he's gone, the rival family can start picking apart his family, painting them as anything from co-conspirators to sharing the same selfish traits of their kin, and that having bred and brought up someone so dishonourable must be a sign that they themselves are no more worthy of their titles as he was. With magic aiding the deception and shielding the rival family, they can afford to outwardly take the moral high-ground, and the knight's family can't do anything about it out of fear that they might suffer the same fate as the knight. Unless he returns successful to both verify his vow and clear his own and his family's names, the rivals will hold a huge advantage, not only because they hold more power, but because they exposed the dishonour and weakness of an entire family of nobles. In the eyes of others, they couldn't be more righteous.

#3 - Just the fact that nobles are fallible is enough; I have no plans at all to have any original character appear and suddenly be able to deceive the King.

#4 - Like #1, that's pretty much settled, then.

#5 - This also pretty much gives me the nod.

I was hoping to avoid using direct chaos magicks as opposed to perhaps the grey magic of the lore of shadow purely because I didn't want the antagonist to exactly be a powerful enough servant of Chaos to use them, but I suppose it wouldn't make a huge difference in the plot - it'd only make the antagonist a bit stronger; I might have them dealt with a bit later in than I was hoping, then.

I strongly urge you to pick up the sourcebook for Bretonnia for the previous edition of WHFRP. It does a fabulous job of explaining how the Bretonnians can be paragons of virtue and justice and niceness in one army book, and be feudal gakheads who oppress everyone born without a noble title in the next army book. It really explains Bretonnian culture, both the supposed reality (how the nobles think everything is) and the actual reality (how things really work). It's a fantastic read. I can summarize bits of it, if you can't find a copy.

Also, one of the interesting things they put in there was that a new tradition was sprouting up in rural Bretonnia; that of making dolls in the image of a magically-talented child, and then leaving the doll in the child's bed for the servants of the Lady of the Lake to steal. The result is that quite a few children in Bretonnia have eluded the Wood Elves, despite being magically inclined...

Also, regarding Bretonnian noblewomen: they run the show when the husband is off fighting. So, when hubby is away they are in charge, with all the power that implies. Related to the bit about magic kids, most Bretonnian nobles with magic daughters send them to the Empire for schooling, rather than let the Wood Elves get them (they let the WE have the magical sons, since wizards make crappy knights and all noble males must be knights). The practical reason for this is that daughters are useful for political marriages, and they are double useful when they can cast magic spells to manipulate their husbands into doing what their fathers want. A Bretonnian noblewoman has power when her husband is away. When she's an Empire trained wizard, too, she has power even when he's home.