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Knights of the Square Table

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The Knights of the Square Table were Uther Penndraig's core companions. Uther ultimately had seven Knights.[1][2][3]

Name[]

Officially, the Knights of the Sqaure Table were so named because of the diplomatic symbolism of a square table; it had no head, and was a place where people could be meeting while sitting in opposition, among other traits. In reality, of course, it was a reference to King Arthur's Round Table.[4]

Specifically, the name is from a recurring D&D campaign of the same name Juniper's group had played, the same campaign the character of Uther was from.[5][6]

Members[]

  1. Vervain - the first of Uther's companions. Flower mage, mysterious wizard mentor, DMPC.
  2. Forty-Two - shapeshifting changeling rogue, based on a character by Reimer. Uther's second companion, one of the two he had aquired before attempting to pull the sword from the stone.[7]
  3. Everett Wolfe, an often-bumbling, intuitive tattoo mage based on Tom's wizard. One of the two Knights that Uther acquired shortly after attempting to pull the sword from the stone.[7] Survived into the present by "skipping forward" near the end of his natural lifespan.
  4. An Aerbian Cleric. One of the two Knights that Uther acquired shortly after attempting to pull the sword from the stone.[7] Presumably this is Dolmada, who's one of the party members present when Uther had his breakdown at Kuum Doona,[8] but not otherwise mentioned by name in-story.
  5. Raven Masters, the party's diminutive Ell archivist and "exposition fairy", based on a character of Maddie's.
  6. Montran - the party's "brute". By the time the group came to Kuum Dooma, he was perhaps the most battered down by personal tradgedy of all of them.[9] Although it wasn't widely known, he was from a village near what became Ink and Ardor, and briefly trained as an anger mage; his conflict with the nascent Atheneum almost led to a war.[10] He had a scar on his face.[11]
  7. Alcida - Vitric, the last of Uther's knights to join.[12] Not to be confused with her granddaughter, Alcida Divona, the Head of Uniquities.[13]

Pallida Sade was not considered one of the Knights, although she at times sort of filled a similar role.[14] Other "hangers on" at Uther's mobile court who weren't considered full Knights included Helio, a young boy eventually revealed to be his daughter Dahlia in disguise.[15] Zona, his wife, was not a member of the Knights, although arguably more powerful than any of them in her own way.[16]

Shared Abilities & Traits[]

Their skills and talents grew in power alongside Uther's, with many of them speculating that they shared in some fraction of his mysterious "knack" for rapid learning. For example, Raven found that she was less and less subject to the usual tendency of he species to adapt more slowly, until eventually she thought faster than any human.[17]

The knights also sometimes speculated that they were protected by some kind of destiny or protective magic that didn't extend to those outside the party, such as Uther's lovers.

Some attempted to retire, but they would generally be dragged back in for one one last job. Some died, however.[18]

References[]

  1. ↑ Uther had seven of his Knights of the Square Table, and extrapolating from that, I was bound to have at least a few more. - Chapter 44: Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats
  2. ↑ The historical records showed Uther Penndraig having seven companion-analogues, his Knights of the Square Table (I groaned whenever I thought about that name). - Chapter 54: Looper
  3. ↑ It hadn’t escaped my notice that Everett, the decrepit old man, shared a name with Everett, the bumbling skin mage based on Tom’s character and one of Uther’s seven Knights. - Chapter 114: The Meeting of Minds
  4. ↑ “Why a square table?” I asked. [...] I’d been only barely listening to the nonsense that Masters was spouting; I knew all of it well enough, since it was the bullshit that Arthur had made up at the gaming table long ago. It was polished and refined, and delivered by someone who actually believed it, but backwards bullshit justification all the same. A square table had no head, it was a place where people could be meeting while sitting in opposition, on and on. “It’s a reference to Earth,” I said. “There was a historical figure that Uther was emulating.”
  5. ↑ Knights of the Square Table - Our longest-running campaign that largely focused around Uther Penndraig becoming (and being) king, with a few twists and turns along the way. This was the most success I ever had with one character’s motivations driving the plot. Picked back up a few times, when I had built up plot and ideas for it. Arthur’s favorite. - Chapter 105: Notes
  6. ↑ “Tom,” I said. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. “Do you remember his character’s name, in the Knights of the Square Table campaign?” “Elhart Cloakshield,” said Uther, after a momentary pause. He was watching me more carefully now. I hadn’t picked that campaign by accident. It was the one where the character of Uther Penndraig had originated. - Chapter 238: A Certain Kind of Longing
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Uther Penndraig arrived in Caledwich, fully formed. Whatever had happened to him in the four years between the death of his family and his first time through the gates of the then-capital, he had become a skilled swordsman and a polished speaker with a stolid determination and a devotion to good. He had met and gained the loyalty of two of his eventual seven companions, those who would later become his Knights of the Square Table. He had Vervain, the flower mage, and Forty-Two, a changeling of ill repute and recent friend. Both of them were, by that point, already sworn to him, heart and soul. [...] I was reading this, I was thinking that it was pretty fricking dumb of the Dark King to not just take the rock out of Greychapel, for exactly that reason … but then I got to the part where Uther tried to pull the sword from the stone, and failed, whereupon he was ambushed and had to fight his way out with his allies in tow. [...] After that, Uther spent about a year recovering from his fight, gathering more powerful allies, including two more of his Knights of the Square Table (one a skin mage, who was named after a bumbling wizard Tom used to play but didn’t seem to share all that much in common with the character, and the other a cleric, though Aerbian clerics were a lot different than in traditional D&D). After that, he went after Avengion again, which he’d discovered the location of. - Chapter 29: Greychapel
  8. ↑ Chapter 92: Shades
  9. ↑ “It’s stationary,” said Montran. He brushed aside a few strands of hair from his face. Their adventures had worn on him more than any of the others, even Uther. His brother and sister had died the year before, and the group’s brute had been drifting in melancholy since then. - Chapter 91: An Open House
  10. ↑ “We encountered passion mages a few times,” said Raven as Grak wrote down the results. “Not many people know this, but Montran came from a village near what’s now Ink and Ardor. He trained there for a bit, primarily as an anger mage, until he got kicked out, which eventually led to him finding Uther and becoming one of the Knights.” She tapped her lips with her finger. “There was something the Dungeon Master said, in your last meeting, which was that tattoo magic had always been for Everett. For Everett. So … it’s possible that passion magic was for Montran. We nearly went to war with Ink and Ardor. I’m not entirely sure though, whether that theory might hold true in this instance.” “Huh,” I replied. “You think that passion magic might have been a Montran story, not an Uther story?” - Chapter 173: Passions
  11. ↑ I knew what Montran looked like, from recreations that Bethel had shown me, but his scar kept slipping on and off his face, changing whenever I thought about it. It was, in some sense, like being inside Raven’s mental model of this isolated event, with my own models thrown in where things were incomplete. - Chapter 175: High Concept
  12. ↑ “Another summer home?” asked Alcida, raising an eyebrow. She’d been the last of his Knights, a slip of a girl then and an intimidatingly well-muscled woman now. She was a vitric, bald, with blue hands, strong enough in her species’ magic that her veins were engorged with electricity. - Chapter 91: An Open House
  13. ↑ The vitric held out her hand. “Alcida Divona,” she said. “Head of Uniquities. It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.”
    I shook her hand, looking her over, wary of the lightning I knew her body contained. “Alcida. You were one of Uther’s Knights.”
    She gave me a faint, confused smile. “No,” she said. “I was named after her. She was my grandmother.” - Chapter 103: Contract
  14. ↑ “Uh, that’s sort of a long story,” said Pallida. She paused. “He was the greatest hero the world had ever known. I wasn’t one of his Knights, but there were a few times I came close to filling that role.” - Chapter 110: Bubblegum
  15. ↑ “Uther took him on, maybe because he was missing his daughter, or to make up for the fact that he couldn’t relate to his sons, or … I don’t know what he was thinking, only that Helio joined up with us, and the three of us, Raven, Helio, and myself, all went on some adventures together for a few short weeks, until Uther found out that Helio was really Dahlia, who had run away from home and changed into a boy with the help of a magical belt.” She looked over at the house. “They had a big fight in Uther’s traveling court, all his Knights present, all us hangers-on too, with her, at eleven years old, looking as perfectly defiant as anyone I’ve ever seen, and him consumed by anger. Eventually he settled down though, and allowed her to be part of things.” - Chapter 125: The Remnants of the Past
  16. ↑ “I thought that I would be your love interest, if you started to grow beyond my ability to contribute,” she said. “Uther had his Knights, but he had a wife as well, and Zona had more power than any of them, in all the ways that mattered. All the focus gets placed on Uther, but she’s the ancestor of every Prince and Princess of Anglecynn just like he is. She shaped the future of Anglecynn in her own ways.” - Chapter 52: Culmination
  17. ↑ “Does it take much longer for things to settle in your head, given what race you are?” I asked. “Race?” asked Raven, turning back to look at me with a raised eyebrow. “Sorry,” I said. “Species.” “Oh,” replied Raven. “In the normal case, yes, but I was one of Uther’s Knights, and that provided me with some level of compensation, especially as the years went on, until eventually I was able to understand and adapt faster than any human could. That’s less true now.” - Chapter 128: An Open Book
  18. ↑ “I’ve been thinking of leaving,” said Grak. “The pay is better than anywhere else. The experience has been interesting. Dangerous. The connection to Juniper …” He trailed off, which was a bit of his assimilated tact showing. “None of Uther Penndraig’s Knights ever left his service, not for long,” said Amaryllis. “They retired, from time to time, but they always came back for one last adventure, sometimes more than one. And sometimes they die. It’s not an aspect of narrative theory that I talked about that much with him, but my interest in it should be obvious.” - Chapter 73: Amaryllis
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