West of the Grey Mountains, between deep forest and grey ocean, lies Bretonnia: a kingdom built in the shape of a lance. It was forged more than a thousand years ago, when Gilles le Breton and his Grail Companions broke the greenskin tides in twelve great battles and bound the feuding dukedoms into one realm beneath one crown. From that age of legend Bretonnia has changed astonishingly little. It remains a land of pennanted castles, tourney fields, and sworn oaths, where disputes are settled by the lance, virtue is measured against the Chivalric Code, and every noble son dreams of dying famously rather than living quietly.
Above king and code alike stands the Lady of the Lake, the veiled goddess who rose from the waters to bless Gilles and has held the kingdom's soul ever since. Her Grail is Bretonnia's holiest mystery: knights who forsake everything to quest for it either perish on the road or return transfigured, and none who drink will speak of what they saw. Her damsels are the mystery's price: fay-touched daughters taken from their families as children and returned years later as ageless, uncanny prophetesses. What the Lady truly is, where her otherworld lies, what becomes of the children she claims: Bretonnia does not ask. In Bretonnia, faith is a form of courtesy.
The splendor rests on mud. Nine of every ten Bretonnians are peasants, bound to the land and to lords they may never look in the eye, owing their masters labor, harvest, and sons. Peasant hands raise the castles, fletch the arrows, drive the baggage trains, and dig the graves after every glorious charge. The knighthood holds this to be the natural order (protection traded for toil, as the Lady ordained), and from the castle battlements the bargain does look fair. It looks rather different from the bottom of a plow furrow.
Yet it would be a mistake to see Bretonnia as mere pageantry over rot, for chivalry is a real power in the world. It sends lone riders against dragons and holds shieldless peasant lines steady beside them; it has broken invasions that swallowed stronger realms whole. Honor is Bretonnia's shield, and honor is its blindfold. The same code that makes a Bretonnian knight the finest heavy cavalryman in the Old World forbids him to question the tithe of daughters, the hunger in the villages, or the true cost of a legend. Bretonnia rides out anyway, banners bright against the dark, refusing to look down.
Units
Battle PilgrimsSpecial · InfantryRagged commoners who follow a Grail Knight as a living saint, fighting with fanatic devotion to guard the holy relics they bear before them.
Field TrebuchetRare · War MachineA massive siege engine hauled to the open field by cursing peasants, hurling boulders that smash knights and monsters flat in a single crushing blow.
Foot SquiresCore · InfantryAspiring young noblemen who serve on foot as bodyguards to a Grail Knight, proving their worth in the shield-wall before they earn the right to ride.
Grail KnightsRare · Heavy CavalryLiving saints of the Lady: knights who completed the Grail Quest and drank from the sacred cup, returning ageless, radiant, and terrible.
Grail ReliquaeRare · InfantryA towering shrine of bones and relics (the remains of a Grail Knight) borne aloft by pilgrims whose faith drives them into an unstoppable frenzy.
Knights ErrantCore · Heavy CavalryBretonnia's young knights, landless and starving for renown, who ride at the enemy as though glory were a race, because for them it is.
Knights of the RealmCore · Heavy CavalryThe landed knighthood of Bretonnia and the thunder at the heart of every army: lance-armed heavy cavalry whose massed charge has decided a thousand years of battles.
Men-at-ArmsCore · InfantryThe peasant infantry of Bretonnia: polearm-carrying commoners who hold the line, dig the camps, and do the unglamorous dying that keeps the knighthood glorious.
Mounted YeomenCore · Light CavalryLowborn horsemen and huntsmen who scout the fields ahead of their lords' glorious charge, and are never, ever permitted to forget their place.
Peasant BowmenCore · Missile InfantryCommoner archers with longbows and sharpened stakes: the weapon chivalry disdains, and the one that wins Bretonnia's battles before the charge ever lands.
Pegasus KnightsSpecial · Flying CavalryKnights borne to war on the wild pegasi of the Grey Mountains, falling upon war machines and command posts out of a clear sky.
Questing KnightsSpecial · Heavy CavalryKnights who have forsworn all comfort to seek the Grail, wielding great blades two-handed and asking no quarter until their sacred quest is done.
Characters
Bertrand the BrigandThe BrigandAn outlaw hero who robs corrupt lords and defends the downtrodden peasantry from the greenwood, hunted as a criminal and beloved as a saviour.
Louen LeoncoeurThe LionheartedThe grail-blessed King of Bretonnia: a warrior-king preserved in his prime by the Lady's cup, who rides the hippogryph Beaquis at the head of every charge he asks of others.
Repanse de LyonesseThe MaidA humble peasant maiden granted a vision by the Lady, who took up sword and banner and led Bretonnia to victory in an age when its knights had all but despaired.
Tancred, Duke of QuenellesThe Vampire's BaneThe grim Duke of Quenelles, whose bloodline swore an eternal grudge against the vampire Red Duke and who has spent his life hunting the undead across the southlands.
The Fay EnchantressVoice of the LadyThe Lady of the Lake's living voice in Bretonnia: the prophetess before whom kings kneel, who blesses monarchs, claims the fay-touched children, and carries the goddess's word out of the otherworld.
The Green KnightThe Living LegendBretonnia's deathless protector: a spectral knight who rises from mist and still water wherever the Lady's sacred places are threatened, and who cannot be slain because he is no longer quite mortal.
Subfactions
BastonneThe cradle of the Uniter: Gilles le Breton was a son of Bastonne, and no dukedom carries his legend more heavily or more proudly. Its knights ride as though the founder himself were watching, and under dukes like Bohemond Beastslayer they have made Bastonne a byword for magnificent, unreasonable courage.
BordeleauxThe great port dukedom of Bretonnia's western shore, rich in wine, salt, and ships, where chivalry has learned to keep its footing on a rolling deck. Bordeleaux's knights patrol sea lanes as well as marches, and its dukes hold that a lord owes his people plenty as well as protection.
CouronneThe royal dukedom of Bretonnia's northern coast, seat of the king and the standard by which all chivalry in the Old World is measured. Couronne's white-and-silver knights guard the crown, the great tourney grounds, and a shoreline forever tested by Norscan longships, and they are expected, always, to be perfect.
LyonesseA storm-hammered coastal dukedom whose knights are accounted the fiercest in Bretonnia, forever at war with raiders from the sea and rivals on land. Lyonesse was the home of Landuin, most perfect of the Grail Companions, and the memory of that unmatchable glory drives its knighthood to a pride that borders on fury.
Discussion
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