The Road to Badon

Allow me to backtrack somewhat in my recounting of my personal history and tell of an important event that occurred before I came to this new world.

I previously mentioned my improbable dream to become one of King Arthur's knights. Given my common birth, it seemed an unlikely dream so I settled upon the next best thing. I would serve as a soldier in Arthur's army. To that end, I joined the Caerleon Legion and was appointed as a junior officer.

A little history is in order here. Caerleon is an ancient city that originated as a hill fort during the days of the barbaric Britons who held the land before the coming of the Romans. When the Empire conquered the island, Caerleon was converted to a legionary fortress (Caerleon literally means fortress of the legion). For centuries, Roman legions protected western Briton.

When Rome withdrew, the city fathers realized the importance of defense. They organized their own city military, which they simply called the Legion (known as the Caerleon Legion to people outside our fair town). Unfortunately, our Legion did not live up to the legendary discipline, and success, of our famous forebears. To be honest, it was more of a militia made up of the citizenry when called upon for service. Even though I was a junior officer, I still spent most of my time assisting with my father's business. The Legion would drill irregularly, occasionally turn out to chase off small bands of barbarians, all the while waiting for the King to call us to service. This seemed unlikely once he had defeated the rebel kings and established his authority over all of Britain.

We would get that call one summer. A new Saxon rebellion broke out. They called on reinforcements from the mainland and gathered a huge army. The barbarians pushed westward, sacking British settlements as they marched. King Arthur called upon all soldiers of his realm to converge upon the enemy. He then rode forth the confront the enemy.

The Caerleon Legion mustered together and marched eastward. We did not expect to see action; Arthur and his knights were a couple of days ahead of us. Surely they would be victorious before we arrived. Many of our number grumbled that there would be no spoils of war by the time we got to the front.

After a couple of days of marching, we were surprised to see Arthur's army approaching us. They looked haggard and worn. We realized they were in retreat! How could this be? Arthur defeated? We could barely believe it, but it was true. Arthur and been fighting a running battle against overwhelming numbers. He was delaying to allow time for reinforcements to arrive. Our Legion was one of many retinues that were converging upon Arthur's position. Thus, he decided it was time to make a stand. He selected a position at Badon Hill, site of a ruined hill fort from ancient days. The infantry, including the Caerleon Legion, formed upon the hill while Arthur and his knights guarded the flanks.

Soon we could see a swarming, writhing mass approach us. It blackened the horizon like a coming storm, With trepidation, we realized that it was the Saxon army. Sometimes I wonder if this was the greatest force assembled since the days when the Great Alexander crossed swords with the Persian horde. Regardless, the size of the Saxon army filled us with dread. However, our commanders called upon us to hold our ground in the name of Arthur the King and the Lord Jesus Christ. We were determined to give our all for them.

My hand grows weary from writing. I shall return to my narrative on another day.

OOC Notes:

• The historical record does not provide much detail about the Battle of Badon Hill, a historical battle that has traditionally been attributed to Arthur. My account of the battle is inspired by the Great Pendragon Campaign and Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles.
• The Caerleon Legion is purely my own invention. Caerleon was known as the fortress of the Legion (actually one of many in Britain) so its seemed logical that a remnant of one of the vaunted Roman legions would persist. Given the deterioration of the Roman world around the time of Badon Hill, it also seemed logical that the Caerleon Legion would not be the powerhouse of earlier times.
• Rufus's role as a junior officer was inspired by exceedingly brief and uneventful career as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Unlike Rufus, I was not engaged in any conflict

Flotsam

A continuation of my Christmas story

As I mentioned previously, my knight and I booked passage on a ship bound for the continent. There we would unite with King Arthur's army and join in the march to Rome.

We crossed the Severn Sea without incident but once we began to round the tip of Cornwall we ran into a terrible storm. The sky grew dark and rain fell upon us like sheets of water. The waves tossed us around and the wind blew us off course. For days without end the storm pushed us westward, ever further from our destination.

One day we noticed a peculiar nature of the storm. The sky grew an ominous shade of purplish black and the clouds swirled in a circular pattern that suggested a tunnel. One of the sailors remarked that it looked like a portal to the Otherworld. At the time, I did not realize how prescient he was. Anyway, into the maw of this tunnel our ship sailed. Shortly thereafter we experienced an incredibly rough patch. The surging waves battered our poor little ship. The planks began to give way, we started to take on water, and our vessel was pummeled until it broke apart. I don't exactly remember what happened next. I recall being swept overboard and grasping a piece of flotsam. And thus, I became flotsam myself.

The next thing I remember is waking up upon a beach. The whinny of a horse roused me into consciousness. I looked up a saw a noble lady upon a horse. She asked me where I came from but I could only croak out a plea for help before I slumped into insensibility.

I awoke again to find myself in a castle, being tended to by servants. I learned that it was many days later. I asked where I was; the servants responded that I was in the Scadian Empire. I had never heard of it before. It would take some time but ultimately I would learn that Scadia is in a world unknown to the scholars of my home. Interestingly, it is inhabited from peoples from a variety of different lands - you can find yourself rubbing shoulders with Northmen, Rus, Romans, Cathayans, etc. And it appears that the inhabitants come from different times as well! I once served a Viking lord that claimed to be born nearly 500 years after I was! It seems that my shipmate had an inkling about what was happening. For time is fluid in the Otherworld. It seems that I arrived, if not in the Otherworld itself, then in a world similar to it. Speculation is pointless at this point, however.Wherever it may be, it is in this new world that I arrived and where I now make my life.

OOC Notes

• The noble lady represents the young woman, a former co-worker, who introduced me to the SCA. Alas, I cannot remember her name.
• I always found gatherings of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA or the Scadian Empire in my narrative) to be rather unusual. They claim to be recreating history but at events you can run across such divergent personas as a Roman legionnaire alongside a Viking berserker. Of course, this is utterly a-historical. I find it makes more sense to drop any pretense of a historical background and adopt a fantastical one instead. I envision the various LARP groups as being in another dimension; one where people from our medieval world have been swept up and deposited. This concept is the inspiration for my shipwreck story.
• The Otherworld is a mythical (and mystical) realm in Celtic mythology. It has been described as the land of the dead or the home of the Faerie folk (elves). It seems sensible that a medieval Briton traveling to another dimension would describe it as the Otherworld.

A Christmas Story

Merry Christmas! 
May Christ's peace be upon thee on this blessed day and throughout all your remaining days.

I had planned to continue my narrative in chronological order, however the holiday has pressed upon my mind another story about my life. Therefore, I have decided to jump ahead and tell that story, for it began on another Christmas Day.

As you may know, Arthur revealed himself as the true heir when he drew the sword from the stone. This act occurred on Christmas Day. Once he became king and peace reigned o'er the land, Arthur celebrated the holiday, and the beginning of his kingship, in high style. He would gather his valiant knights to his hall in Camelot for a glorious Christmas feast.

It was during one of his feasts that a messenger approached the king. Reluctantly, he informed Arthur that uninvited guests had arrived and had requested an audience. Ever magnanimous, the king invited them to enter. Three gentlemen, dressed in elaborate togas and with their heads held haughtily, approached the throne. They gave the king the barest of nods. Arthur ignored the slight and asked them to state their business. The chief of the three then read a proclamation from Lucius, self-styled Emperor of the Romans. This Lucius claimed Britannia as a fief of the Roman Empire and Arthur as his subject. Due to his inferior status, Arthur owed the Emperor his oath of allegiance and tribute to Lucius.

The hall erupted in rage. Arthur's knights vociferously denounced the ambassadors. The sound of swords being drawn rang throughout the chamber. Although himself enraged, Arthur held up his hand in a signal for calm. The room quieted as the crowd anxiously awaited the king's response.

Arthur calmly thanked the ambassadors for their service to their emperor for making such a long and difficult journey. Then he stated that he could not make an immediate answer without soliciting advice from his councilors. He invited the Romans to return the next day for his answer. Then he adjourned the feast so he could confer with his most trusted advisers.

The next day, the ambassadors returned for Arthur's response. Rather than submit, as they expected, Arthur issued a challenge to Lucius. Arthur denied Lucius's overlordship to Britian. Instead, he asserted his own claim to the Roman throne. He warned the ambassadors of his plan to gather an army and march upon Rome itself. He then had the ambassadors escorted from the kingdom so they could deliver Arthur's message to Lucius.

Soon, all of Britain was bustling with activity in preparation for Arthur's expedition. I was no exception. At the time, I was a squire to a minor knight from the environs of Caerleon. We made our preparations and booked passage to the continent on a ship sailing from my hometown.

Duty calls at the  moment. I shall continue with my narrative at a later time.

OOC Notes:
Although not as well known as many of the other legends of King Arthur, his conquest of the Roman Empire is recounted in various sources. This provides the perfect opportunity to board a ship for the continent, which as you will see will play a key role in my backstory.

My Early Life

At the risk of sounding vain, the story of the Wardens begins with me. When I founded the Wardens, my experiences helped shape my vision of the group. Thus, an understanding of my story will help to explain the Wardens.

My first memories are of Caerleon, my childhood home. From family stories I know I was not born there. My family held some land in the east, but it was overrun by Saxons during the chaos following the death of Uther Pendragon. We fled to Caerleon, where my father established himself as a merchant. There we lived comfortable lives.

Map of southern Britain
Caerleon (also spelled Carlion) is circled in red

I was a young boy when King Arthur Pendragon established his capital at Caerleon. This was early in his reign, before the glory days of Camelot, when a coalition of kings denied his claim as High King of Britain (Arthur was young himself, only a few years older than I was). Civil war ravaged the land, and the conflict came to our doorstep. The king was besieged in our fair city. As a boy, it just seemed like high adventure to me. I would climb the city towers to get a look at the enemy army and to watch the skirmishes when King Arthur sent out sorties to disrupt the rebels. I watched from the walls as the king sallied forth, attacked the besiegers, and drove them away. I was particularly impressed by the king's knights, clad in shining mail and riding majestic stallions. I began to dream of serving as a knight in King Arthur's service. Alas, my family, although successful, was not of knightly birth so it seemed a hopeless dream. Perhaps one day I could perform some valuable service to the king such that he would reward me with a knighthood. Anyway, that would be my dream for many a year.

OOC Notes:

• Technically, the Wardens are a company within Amtgard. However, as I am the only member, it serves more as a role-playing device than an actual LARP unit. I set up the Wardens as my vision of my ideal unit.
• The map comes from Pendragon, a pen-and-paper role-playing game. While I have never played the game, I love the background material it provides. I've read a few Arthurian novels (though I haven't completed the original Le Morte d'Arthur). Greg Stafford, the creator of Pendragon, has distilled the information from the old Arthurian sources into a coherent timeline and geography. I highly recommend his The Great Pendragon Campaign. I got the electronic version of the map from this site.
• I like to use my real-life experiences in my backstory. My father was an airline pilot; in my LARP life history, I re-imagined him as a merchant that captained a ship. In real life, he was also a former Air Force pilot (he flew B-57s). His service and career inspired me as a boy; I dreamed of becoming a fighter jock (a knight of the air).
• The labels for this blog will designate where (and incidentally when) the story takes place. Britannia refers to my invented backstory before I arrived in the lands across the sea (i.e. the various LARP organizations). There will also be tales of my adventures in Scadia, Adria, Dagorhir, and Amtgardia.

Introduction

I am known as Rufus of Wyvernwatch. I am the commander of a band of valiant warriors known as the Wardens of Wyvernwatch. 

Heraldry of the Wardens of Wyvernwatch

We are united in our love and loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ as we protect the people from the depredations of the evil entities that plague our land. This is our story

OOC - I decided to start a new blog specifically devoted to the lore of my character that I developed over my years of live-action role playing (LARPing). The blog will be in the form of an annal of the experiences of Rufus, my alter-ego. At times, I will interject with out of character exposition, which I will identify by using italics in addition to marking it OOC.