Mythic Bastionland Without Knights?

I’ve been running games in the Legends of Alba setting since January last year. Under the hood of these ostensibly 5e games though, the engine that has been doing the real work has been the World Prep and Travel procedures from Mythic Bastionland. These are excellent - they’re lightweight and evocative and I find them intuitive to run. The game has been at its best when the player characters have been journeying between destinations on the Kingdom map, encountering the Augurs of the Legends, seeking out Hags for advice, or negotiating clan politics. Seek the Myths, Honor the Seers, Protect the Realm… where have I heard that before?

The Mester Stoor Worm,
from my copy of "The Lore of Scotland",
Westwood & Kingshill

Taking stock of where I’m at with Legends of Alba as a project, I’m reconsidering whether this setting might best be expressed as a ‘module’ for Mythic Bastionland. If I wrote up the Clans like Knights, and the Legends as Myths (which they pretty much are already), would that ‘just work’?

Let’s see. What needs to change?

Clans instead of Knights

Player Characters are called from the clans to answer the Legends. The clans are also effectively the NPC factions that the Characters will be dealing with. Clans are ruled by Chiefs. Druids advise the Chiefs in terms of The Law of The Land, Bards chronicle and spread word of a Chief’s deeds, while Warriors lead their warband. 

 Knights in MB are expected to uphold their Oaths, which elevates them from the vassals but places a burden of responsibility upon them. There’s a great line in the book that they ‘rely on their arms, but are expected to know the customs of peace’. 

The clans of Alba meanwhile are all about finding the balance between civilization and nature. They are dependent on their harsh but beautiful land for survival. They also walk a line between prioritising the self and the community, embodied by the Chiefs, whose ambition can get the better of their sense of duty. 

Hags instead of Seers

The Seers are one of my favourite parts of MB, but are more morally ambiguous than the Hags of Alba. Both fulfil an important role - a hermit that players can seek out for information that not everyone has access to. But while the Seers are intended to provide an optional extra level of conflict to the game (their motivations are not always aligned to the PCs), the Hags of Alba embody the link between mortal folk and The Otherworld, as they have one foot in each. Like Seers, they are able to glimpse the past, present and future, making their advice tend towards the cryptic. But what they offer is Truth to those who seek it, and they aim to steer mortals towards equilibrium with the land and, by extension, The Otherworld.

Just Works?

So if we take Mythic Bastionland and swap Knights, Seers, Myths and The City for Clans, Hags, Legends and The Otherworld, do we get Legends of Alba? And are those two meaningfully distinct? To the first, I think so. To the second, I hope so! I had a go at writing up one Clan and one Legend just to try it on for size. It was good fun, so at the moment I’m thinking it would be worth writing more. If I can get up to 12 Clans and 12 Legends, that’d be enough for a test game I think! 

 Till next time!