Pendragon is really keyed to campaign play, with most sessions equating to a year of game time. There aren’t a ton of stand-alone adventure, and in the third edition era, most of them were regional and a bit tricky to incorporate into the larger narrative. There’s one scenario that has a rep, though, and of course it’s by the same guy who wrote Masks of Nyarlathotep. This is the new version of The Grey Knight (2024).

In short, a literal specter from the past comes to court to trouble Arthur. Gawain steps up to a challenge of champions to be held in 40ish days’ time, during which the loyal knights of the kingdom must scour the land for the thirteen treasures of Britain, one of which will give Gawain the decisive edge. The players get the inside scoop on which treasure is needed, and travel first to the surreal Wasteland and then to a faerie kingdom to find it and, presumably, save the day.

I like the original quite a lot but had two main reservations. First, it structurally feels too similar to the established tale of Gawain and the Green Knight (by design, actually) and I felt like this would be even more of an issue for the new edition in the wake of the 2021 film. For whatever reason, though, this didn’t bother me this time around. I also don’t love how the players don’t get to square off against the titular villain, but again, whatever revisions were done (I can’t detect specifics), this too was minimized.

The rest is stellar and hits a number of different tones. There’s a great battle, a tourney, a banquet, some silliness. Many major figures are encountered. The sequence in the Wasteland is excellently weird in the symbolic way Arthurian romances often are. Along the way, players encounter omens and prophecies that will unfold later in the saga, though the players likely won’t realize it — this is perhaps the coolest part of the campaign. And the book looks lovely. Great art throughout, and the layout work really makes the line feel cohesive in a way that is a new high bar for Chaosium.