Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to another episode of Fantasy Fireside where
today we've had so many requests for this episode. It's been hotly anticipated. We are
finally talking about the the Frenchmen of Warhammer Fantasy, the the the the Sigma males,
the the elf simps themselves, Bretonia and as everyone I'm sure knows Colin absolutely has a
lot to say about Bretonia so I'd just like to pass it on Colin. We should get started. What do you
think about Bretonia? Well I'm glad you asked. Well you see I think they suck. I hate them.
They're stupid. They probably smell bad. They're very fun. They're really fun to talk about. I
love how I open a Total War game and I start as the Empire and then half of the Western Empire
no longer belongs to the Empire. It belongs to Lo and Loinqor and his dumb awful face. He shows
up. Marienberg's no longer the Imperial. It's now belonging to Loinqor. I really love how in a setting
where part of the charm is you can see the different factions advance. You can see the
end of the Empire go through the Renaissance, the early Industrial Revolution, get gunpowder,
get steel. It's really cool how Bretonia goes, no we're going to sit in medieval stasis for all
of time. It's really cool how I think they're the only the only pantheon in Warhammer who are
confirmed to be completely wrong. Like you know you know like the Mechanicus there's some debate
over like you know what is the the Omni-Sai. Is it the void dragon? Is it the Emperor? Could he be
his own thing? Everything works. Can say that. It really could be anything. Bretonia? No. They're just straight up wrong. The Lady of the Lake is not their god. It's an elf. It's not even the head of the Elven god. It's the goddess of magic, Liliath. They're just completely wrong. They also get played by the wood elves. So you know listen like I've said I can respect some elf simping. They're just duped. They don't know they're doing it. They think they're on their own which is stupid and awful and
I hate them. Grail knights are annoying. Nothing is quite as fun as watching him the their armies pump out 50 grail knights and then I explode. It's really fun and lore watching them explode. I hate them. They're they're pretty horrible all around. Marcus Kruger becoming a grail knight was the biggest character assassination I've ever seen in Vermintide. That was that was horrendous and it made me want to cry. Yeah I really hate them and I hope all of them get end times again. I hope the older
world has a special segment where the entire country gets nuked by Skaven Warpstone. Oh so I guess is that the episode done? I mean I can go on. I hate them. I hate them. I don't know if you knew that I hate them. They they have one cool thing which is Jazz LeBreton. He's the only good Bretonian partially because he's dead and the only good Bretonian is a dead one. Other than that let's see they were too snooty for Sigmar.
Which is already something that's just a crime. The dwarves thought Sigmar was a cool guy and if they thought a human was good, who are you to get on your high fucking horse and go, no we're too good for Sigmar.
They're just Arthurian legends but ripped off. Which you know you can say that about a lot of Warhammer factions but at least they're changed up a bit. No they didn't do that for Petonia. They just switched some names and they didn't even switch some of the names.
Jazz LeBreton is just the Green Knight. You know the Green Knight from King Arthur's story. Very cool. Very good story. I love, I hate them.
Anyway you know what? I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm not doing this episode. I'm out. I'll see you later. I quit. Have fun. Figure it out. Good luck. Have fun.
Only kidding everyone. Colin didn't really want to talk about Petonia today so I've actually got someone who's a bit of a fan about talking about Petonia and it's his first time on Fantasy Fireside.
Eli, how are you today? We're talking about Petonia.
Yes we are. I'm very good. Thank you Mr. Andy. I'm excited to talk about one of the best factions in Warhammer that's gone a little too much hate from our friend Colin. I think he's kind of spread the Petonia hate a little bit.
A little. Just a little.
Maybe redeem them.
Okey dokey. Well I'll try not to interrupt too much because it's a casual conversation. I know there's a lot to talk about. But before we talk about anything, like why is it, I think they're one of your, if it's not the most, one of your most favorite factions in fantasy, why do you like them so much? What's their draw?
They just have such a, I'm a big fan of knights. Who isn't? I'm always, you know, chivalry and knights and honor and all that stuff has always resonated with me. I love that stuff. And Petonia is just that, ramped up to a million. It's just the Arthurian, you know what I mean.
Yeah, Arthurian legend.
Yeah. Yeah. Basically just that, but in Warhammer, their heroes are awesome. The good sides of it are really amazing. There's bad sides, obviously. But yeah, I just like the heroes a lot, I think. And just the general, their whole general schtick is really fun and really cool.
But I don't know if they're my absolute favorite in fantasy. It's close between the Dark Elves and the vampires and then Bretonia probably. Something like that. Fair enough. I do love them. I love their aesthetic so much as well. It's like, I don't know if you remember, but there were these mega blocks, like Bionicle type knight guys. And those are like, those are my freaking thing as a kid. I loved those so much.
I'm seeing quite a lot. I'm seeing a strange amount of people mentioning Bionicles in Warhammer videos these days. I don't know what it is. Just this trend going through. Bionicles are awesome. Yeah, they are. But yeah, so other than that, would you like to take it away? Where are we starting on this journey through Bretonia?
We are going to go adventure into Bretonia. It stays a somewhat basic overview of them, but it's a lot. A lot of things, but also basic. So it should be nice and easy to digest, I'm hoping. Maybe I'll get my own beginner to expert and make 40 pages of the book someday.
We'll just hear Colin sieving in the background. He can do the beginner section and I'll do the expert section. It'll be real fun. Fair enough. Okay, so let's dive into our Bretonia war.
Bretonia is a land of heroes, my good friend. It is a land founded upon codes of honor and chivalry. A land fought for by heroes and unified in its vision. The Empire hides behind their black powder machines with no thoughts of honor, while nations such as Tilia pay off mercenaries to fight in their stead, not Bretonia.
Fair Bretonia holds heroes like no other. Great men and women who will charge headlong into darkness with no thought for themselves. Led by a demigod king who leads from the front, patrolled by superhuman paladins who slay whatever beasts they find, and always washed over by the mysterious green knight, Bretonia is truly a sight to behold.
It is a feudal nation, employing a strict hierarchy with the king firmly on top. The king owns the entirety of the land and everything in it, and his word is final. There is one with more authority than him though, and that is the Fae Enchantress, the emissary of the Lady of the Lake, Morgiana.
Peasants sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, and some are oppressed, living harsh lives, while others live relatively good ones. The way Warhammer or the way Games Workshop writes Bretonia makes it a little bit inconsistent, because their general lore makes you think that peasants have the worst life in all of Warhammer,
and that they're the most oppressed group that you could ever exist or ever imagine, but then in the lore of a lot of the dukedoms, their lives don't seem that bad, and they just seem like regular peasants. So it's very hard to...I think it's really a case to case basis.
Okay. If you were to compare them to say, the Empire, do they have a better lot in life than the Empire, or is it kind of hard to say?
I think the majority of peasants don't have a better life than the ones in the Empire, but it depends on how you see it and where you live. Some of them might...I mean, it really depends on your outlook of life. They have very simple lives. They just farm and raise their families.
You might not have a musket, but the air is clear. That's nice. Yeah, they don't have to go work in Yield Industrial Revolution Factory for 15 hours a day and stuff like that. So, I mean, pick your poison, I guess.
The regular peasant life in real life wasn't that bad, but this is Warhammer, so they have to make it bad, otherwise it's not Warhammer-y enough. So I guess take a regular peasant's life and just assume that it's worse, because it's Warhammer. But there are also nice places in Bretonnia, so it depends. But I'll get into that right in a little bit.
Yeah. Some are oppressed and they live harsh lives, while others live relatively good ones, theoretically.
Hmm.
Okay.
So, Bretonnia...do you have any questions, Andy, before we end?
When we compare the aristocracy ruling over the peasants, are they majority quite fair and virtuous, or are they a bit more 40k corrupt? We'll just put the peasants through the meat grinder, screw them.
It depends. I think Games Workshop authors like to focus on the bad guys.
Okay. Or put it this way, for example, Colin absolutely adores Karl Franz, because he just seems like a really nice guy. Is the equivalent of Karl Franz also a really nice guy who's like, oh, I'm not like the other nobles who are beating and flogging their citizens?
Yes. But the current king is a very good and noble man, and in fact he is willing to hear the pleas of all people, whether they be peasants or nobles. So if you have an issue, you can take it up with Karl, sorry, not Karl, Lewin, although he's a very busy man.
Most nobles are really, I don't know if I said most, some of the nobles are really good people, some of them, of course, are just human beings in places of power, and so naturally they're bad people. It depends.
But the knights, I'll explain why some of them are nice. It'll, we'll get to that. So in my opinion, I'd say it's probably like half and half. I don't know if that's real or not, but I'll let you decide once we're finished.
All right, so let's get into the history. Potoni was founded on the shoulders of a great man named Giles Libreton. It might be Giles, or, but I'm going to say Giles, who united the Potoni tribes. Before they even existed though, the War of the Beard, which was the elves and dwarves, which I'm sure Colin taught you about earlier in your Dwarf episode.
Yep, we mentioned them in the Dwarf episode. It was interesting stuff. Yep, it was largely fought upon these lands, seeing the eventual defeat and exodus of the high elves. Those who decided to stay would make the forest of Athel Loren their home and become the wood elves.
A tribe of juridic and agricultural people would wander to these new, now abandoned lands, and eventually the tribe of Potoni people would come over the Grey Mountains, and they would displace the general orcs and juridic people.
Yigmar would offer the Potoni people to join him as he created the Empire, but they would refuse and stay fractured for a long duration of time because their cultural differences were just too great, it would appear, to join the Empire.
But luckily for the Potonians, or the Potoni as they were this time, the dwarves still lived in the Grey Mountains, and with these neighbors, the Potoni people would trade and find technological knowledge through the Daui.
It was in these early days of colonization and newly developed communities that the knightly tradition that would come to rural Potonia came about.
Each village or community had a great warrior, whose only job was to train and protect his people. This warrior would eat the best meals, have a good living space within his watchtower, and be held with great respect.
He would also have a strong warhorse. The ancient knight would be given the fairest maiden for a wife, and naturally this would bring about generations of genetic specimens.
The knights were muscle-bound, hawking men, whose skills of the blade were incredible, and whose courage was that of steel.
Of course, this life of comfort came at a cost, and the warrior would need to ride to battle against any monsters or raiders roaming the lands.
As the communities advanced and grew their warlords, they would become dukes, claiming their land as a dukedom, of which there were sixteen.
Nowadays, there are only fifty. That's always something I really enjoyed. The one guy tasked to be a knight over the entire village, and they just feed him all the food, he lifts all the weights, gets super jacked and juicy, and becomes a champion basically.
Now, the greenskins living beside the Bretonnes had amassed a waa and descended upon the dukedom of Kuloh, and destroyed it, but not after the valiant knights fought to the last.
Two close-by dukedoms went out to destroy the now-lesser army, and then turned on each other, but this started also a fairly good tradition.
The nobles knew more life did not need to be spent, and they fought the first honor duel to decide the owner of the ruins of Kuloh.
For years to come, the lands would be plagued by wars from that of orcs, norskans, goblins, and beastmen.
Bretonnia was beset on all sides by the forces of evil, but one man stood against it all, the duke of Bastogne, Giles the Breton.
He rallied three dukes to his banner, and they valiantly fought, but were defeated. Camping beside a lake, after a desperate battle, the fate of Bretonnia was decided.
An ethereal and beautiful woman appeared to the knights, and Giles cried out, Lady, wouldst thou bless mine banner?
And dipping the bloodied and tattered cloth into the lake, it came back to him, clean and emboldened with power.
The icon of a golden grail lay upon it, and the remaining knights quickly had their arms blessed by the mysterious and clearly powerful Lady of the Lake.
The warriors then, drunk from the cup given by the Lady, and were filled with incredible might.
These were the first grail knights of Bretonnia, and they became the grail companions.
So that's where the bathwater jokes have come from, I suppose.
It's some good bathwater though, because we can see the power that they gained from it as the Greetskne army approached.
It was vast as far as I could see, and they even blotted out the horizon.
The small group of knights rallied around Giles as he raised his banner high, and they charged.
It was as if they had become invincible, and that fate now shielded them as arrows streaked all around them.
They crashed into the orcs' lines, wading deeper and deeper, never slowing the glorious advance and never faltering for a second.
The Greetskne were trampled beneath their feet and cleaved by their swords in a showing of impossible odds.
Utterly terrified of these demigods, the orcs fled and the day was won.
Perhaps the most heroic victory against all the odds was fought that day.
From then on, the knights swore to serve the Lady and to free Bretonnia.
Giles was made leader of battles, and together the heroes would go on to fight for the glory and freedom of their people.
So it was basically like 1000 to 1 odds, and they just frickin' Riders of Rohan went in there and...
Yeah. They're basically like...
As far as Warhammer fantasy go, I'm pretty sure these guys were like Primarch levels of crazy.
Maybe not that far, but I mean probably. Primarch were at the least chapter master, but I think...
Is this like the very beginning of their kind of...
Because I know that I'm still very uncertain about the timeline of everything that happens,
but is this like the majority of the time they've been around, they've been the Greyhound Knights,
or is this a more recent development in the timeline?
This was the like very beginning, basically.
Very beginning, okay.
Yeah. For... I don't remember the exact timeline, but this was the beginning of the creation of what has actually Bretonnia,
because Bretonnia didn't exist yet. It was just like the duketums had just kind of formed,
and now they've been invaded by orcs and beastmen and like a million other enemies.
And the people were very desperate, and the place was basically...
It was the end times for them. There wasn't much hope. These were kind of like the last guys around to do anything about it, and then they did.
Is this pre-Empire of Man or post?
I think it's around the same time.
Okay, so like two big factions just start to like burgeon as all this turmoil was going on, and it's like,
oh, we'll do this thing, we'll do this thing. Okay.
I don't know the exact timeline, because I don't know my Empire lore that good,
but seeing as Sigmar offered to let the Bretonni people join them before this happened,
I'd say he was reuniting the tribes of the Empire people around this time.
Okay, so probably something like that.
But this victory marked the beginning of a string of victories for the three K'rail companions,
the first being Borrelo. The orc Menace had besieged the port city, and so the companions swept in and slaughtered them all.
They said that the three K'rail knights massacred more orcs than the entire army combined.
I think I also said that Giles had three friends. I'm pretty sure he only had two friends, because they're the three guys.
Yeah, yeah. They're the three musketeers of sorts.
Yeah, yeah. But they slayed... These three guys were worth an entire army, if not more.
The lords of Borrelo and Aquitaine would join Giles, and the lady would appear to the gathered lords and bless the newcomers with the K'rail.
The first K'rail chapel was erected in this spot.
The heroes would then go on to win impossible battles all over Bretonnia, the lady appearing to the lords of each nation as they joined the K'rail companions.
The battles were fought on an insane scale, with the knights literally fighting hundreds to one and winning.
I think one battle was 300 to one for their armies, and they took the win.
Giles even led his knights into Athol Loren to fight the orcs,
a largely untraveled place due to the rumors of a fae enchantress and her four spirits.
Said enchantress would lend her aid in battle.
Yeah, the fae enchantress, who is Galadriel, basically.
In another battle, Giles was struck low by a ballista and was then resurrected by the lady.
And the rest of this history is entirely K'rail knights winning incredible battles,
and each noble then being blessed by the lady to join the K'rail companions,
eventually becoming the duketums that we have today.
But at long last, the final battle arose, and they battled against armies of Chaos, Beastmen, Greenskin, and Skaven.
The lady once again appeared and blessed the entire army, who upon the fields of Koron, fought for their rights to live,
and through weeks of battle and an ocean of blood, the day was won.
The twelve duketums agreed to eternal peace, 15 I'm pretty sure, whatever, and Giles became the king of Bretonnia.
Through the years, he would continue to battle the forces of darkness, but would be suspiciously slain by an orc arrow.
Very sad.
It probably wasn't an orc. I can't see how...
So he got resurrected from a ballista, but then an arrow got him.
Yeah. I don't know. You tell me. It was an orc arrow as well, so...
All I said was an orc arrow actually killed him, we're pretty low.
But as he died, he has to be laying on a raft.
And within the mists of the lake that he was sent out on, it is said that he was taken by the lady.
Giles' son, Louis, was crowned, but many debates arose of who deserved the throne.
The young man took the pilgrimage to seek the lady and drink from the grail, bringing the tradition of the questing knight.
No individual was to become king or duke without drinking from the grail.
He returned, of course, and became king.
I think I'm wrong, actually. I think no individual can become king without drinking from the grail.
I'm pretty sure a duke doesn't have to be a grail knight.
You gotta get that power buff before you're allowed.
But he drank from the grail and returned to become king.
And he created the chivalric code. His father had lived by such codes, and Louis sought to make them the foundation of the kingdom.
The codes contain seven commandments that are as follows.
To serve the lady of the lake, to defend the domains entrusted to him, to protect the weak and fight for the rights,
always to fight the enemies of virtue and order, never to give up the fight until the foe be defeated,
never to break faith with a friend or ally, always to display honor and courtesy.
It also contains the rules of honor, which are, a knight may only fight hand-to-hand with sword or lance,
he may not use a missile weapon, a knight shall always accept a challenge towards personal combat,
a knight shall not draw sword against his fellow Bretonian knights, except in trial by combat or within a tournament,
a knight shall not allow himself to be captured alive, a knight shall not flee from the enemy, nor retreat without proper tactical cause.
So, pretty good foundations.
I'd say, naturally I think if everyone followed these rules, Bretonnia would be a very nice place,
you know, in any society, nobody follows all the rules, unfortunately.
You know what it reminds me of though? I'm just working on my Blood Angels content this month,
and it reminds me of the, they have the five, is it the five graces and the five virtues,
and the five graces, I think they are honor, humility, mercy, restraint and forgiveness.
And the other, like the counterpart is like, be strong, be savage, be detached, kill things.
It's like, okay, fair enough. And that's like that. But there's also the whole thing, they've got the grails and there's nobility.
I'm like, that's an interesting parallel with Blood Angels and Bretonians.
I never knew that.
Louis Dante, and very French, you know, Luise.
Nice. That's fun. So yeah, Faith in the Lady became a key part of Bretonni society,
and for a time the codes of chivalry were upheld, and Bretonia grew mightier by the day.
The Fey Enchantress became the voice of the Lady and her authority was absolute,
acting as a religious figurehead for the people.
This was Bretonia's golden age. The Wood Elves would become their allies,
and this gave Bretonia great protection as no one could invade through Athel Loren.
Moving on, through the timeline, there is another series of conflicts.
In a humorous, sorry, parlay between Tilly and mercenaries and a few Bretonian nobles,
a man named Eto the Fierce challenged the Bretonian knights to a joust,
after the horsemen had insulted the Tillion's skill in battle.
The Tillions arrived with larger lances, a sex joke was made,
and the Bretonian knights went home ashamed.
It just reminds me of Jago's severtarian telling Corso when telling Jago severtarian,
like, oh, your mum lays with pigs, oh, guys, come on.
Well, I think it was the Bretonians made an emphasis on no enchanted weaponry,
but the Tillions brought longer lances, which had nothing to do with enchantments,
and then a Bretonian said, the Tillion lances are longer than the Bretonians,
and the Lady said, we know, and then they all laughed, and the knights were embarrassed.
Mine is literally bigger than yours, like, come on, guys, get on with it.
And these were in the lands of Ravala, and they have not been fought over since.
Going through the timeline, I've just highlighted a few things.
I didn't want to talk, put everything in, because there's a ton of timeline stuff,
but they went on a few crusades, classic, because nothing's original in Warhammer.
And of course, these crusades were in Arbi against a sultan, what a coincidence.
But they fought alongside the Empire, which was cool.
I think it was one of the first times that they fought with the Empire.
So the Knights of Bretonia and the Knights of the Empire fought beside each other
against the sultan Jafar and his forces of Arbi.
Jafar had invaded Istalia and was pushed back to his homeland,
where the crusading knights breached the port city walls and utterly defeated him.
They would then skirmish with the many tribes of Arbi, and eventually,
in the final battle, slay Jafar with the aid of Empire knights.
They then left the desert lands, leaving the Empire to do with it what they wished,
because the Bretonians had no interest in sand and a place that's too hot.
There's no farming to be done there, naturally.
Where are we going to get the water for the grails? There's no water here!
Exactly, you can't have bath water if there's no water.
Exactly.
They had to go back.
In later times, the Balzac,
he led his crusading force through the mountains,
defeating numerous greenskin armies and receiving great honor from the dwarves.
These lands would later become the Border Princes,
which are the yellow faction, I think, in Total War Warhammer.
They got the yellow symbol thing, I think.
Yeah, because they're not Marienberg.
But they're still around today, because end times don't exist.
So they're originally Bretonian knights in the Lord's Tridge School.
At one point, this is something I think Colin has brought up before,
but Borderlo was plagued by the Skaven.
In a less humane but effective act, Baron Giscard du Pont
torched the infected quarter of the city.
This naturally killed a large amount of people, but it did stop the plague.
But the Skaven later attacked in full force, causing rampant disease
to decimate the lands of Bretonia and Tilia.
The insane but powerful Duke Merovit of Mouselon
brought to the beginning of salvation, lifting the siege from Brion.
He later fought alongside other Bretonian forces as well as Athel Loren,
and the day was won.
But the crazy duke's madness was fully revealed in the Victory Feast,
in which the nobles were witness to the duke's shambling servants
and morbid display of impaled criminals decorating his halls.
This is in Mouselon, so in Total War it's the Red Duke,
but I'm not sure if the Red Duke is actually a character,
because the actual Duke of Mouselon is the Black Knight,
but it's close enough I guess.
Anywho, the king spoke out against Merovit, and they fought a duel eventually,
but Merovit won, and he tore out the throne of the king and drank his blood.
I don't think he was actually even a vampire at this point,
so he was just a really crazy guy.
He was just doing it for a flex, like, what's this?
So Merovit's kingdom was destroyed though, and they killed him. Naturally.
After this, great crusades were launched during the Erentree Wars.
Many were against the orcs, with some being in the Far of Lands in Ereby against the Tomb Kings.
There was a time when the Duke of Mouselon deceived many into thinking he had the true Grail,
but this was eventually revealed, and once again Mouselon was sieged.
And ever since then, there has been no officially recognized Duke of Mouselon.
The dukedom still exists, but the actual Duke is not recognized as a Duke.
So, okay.
The rest of their history is just more conflicts against the various races of fantasy, so we can move on.
At one point, Heinrich Hemmler invaded Bretonnia with all of his undead buddies.
He's the evil wizard guy, and lost.
So yeah, that's the general timeline of Bretonnia, because we're not going to talk about End Times naturally.
I refuse to talk about End Times. Especially if Bretonnia's treatment in the End Times...
I'm assuming it was bad.
It was very bad.
It was all bad regardless, because End Times suck, but the one decision that they made that was nice during the End Times
was make the Green Knight Giles le Breton.
So that was cool. I'll talk about the Green Knight later, but that makes sense.
I feel like they could have said that without it being the End Times though anyways.
So, but whatever.
The rest of the End Times not canon. Only that one thing.
I can talk about their hierarchy if I may.
Yeah, go for it.
Bretonnia again follows the strict system of feudalism.
The bottom of course are the peasants, who are generally sworn to fiefs, ruled by lords, knights, and other such nobles.
Like the Knights of Old, these peasants swear to serve the noble in exchange for their protection.
They give nine-tenths of their harvest to said noble, and they have little...
And 90% tax rate, geez.
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot, but you know. But they do have little to no rights for things such as reading, writing, education, freedom of travel, and marrying anyone of higher station, leading to inbreeding in a lot of areas.
Well, if you put it like that, like what are you gonna buy? Beer? That's about it. I can just buy beer.
Yep. Literally.
I don't think they're allowed to travel to other dukedoms, but a lot of dukedoms have populations that move around a lot, so I'm pretty sure they are allowed to travel sometimes.
It feels very inconsistent of how they want to treat these peasants.
You need to have a very short, very quick expiration date passport to go from each dukedom to say, oh, have you got all your stamps? Oh, have they all been... No, you can't leave, sorry. Not allowed.
Rebellion is seen with extreme punishment, and a peasant who attacks a noble will find their family to be tortured and killed. Simple as that.
You're not allowed to hunt in Bretonnia either because, naturally, the king owns all of those animals in the land.
And so if you hunt something, worst case scenario is the local lord will replace you with what you hunted and hunt you down instead.
Do they have problems with feeding themselves? Do the lords look after them and like, here's a bunch of potatoes and some water, at least? Or are they like, no, we're struggling, we have to hunt?
It depends. A lot of peasants are pretty hungry fellas, but they keep their one-tenth of what they farm.
And hopefully you had a bountiful harvest, because that's what you got to feed yourself with, basically.
Hope there isn't a famine going on, because then it sucks to be you, says the guy in his castle.
There are handouts sometimes, but they're pretty rare. When they happen though, they're quite the big spectacle, and they're a very big deal when you're getting free stuff, obviously.
Let's see here. The advancement in society is rare, but there is sort of a middle class of traders, doctors, and the likes.
But they are still sworn to the lords of their lands and must pay their nine-tenths of crops to set lords, but they generally do this in the form of currency instead.
Most of these were given permission by their local lord to pursue these trades and specific learning areas.
And they have general freedom of travel, but are still the property of the lord, and these individuals are fairly rare, from what I can tell.
They're basically peasants, but doctor peasants and trader peasants and stuff, because there's no actual distinction, I don't think.
It's just like one guy with a bucket of leeches, like, I'm a doctor, so I don't know, I'm a doctor, just sticking away.
But yeah, so there's kind of a middle class. It's just France, obviously. I'm sure you've probably gathered that by now.
They're just a bunch of boulangeries, and that's about it. You want some croissants? No? That's all we got. Sorry.
Let's see, but they are slowly coming into existence. Other ways to possibly advance in this society would be to invent something incredible, such as the inventor of the trebuchet.
But this is one of the only examples I can really give. Rapace de Leonesse, who's Jean D'Arc, went from peasant girl to Duchess of Edicton.
So, I mean, take what you will. Like I said, the lore feels inconsistent, but it's fine.
We've advanced, so I do have a question, if I may. So the Empire's got muskets and gunpowder.
Can they feasibly make them, but they just don't want to faff around with the technology and the infrastructure, or do they not know how to make them?
A little bit of both. Science isn't exactly a big thing in a society whose middle class is like non-existent, and they don't really have researchers and stuff as much.
They have like monks and stuff, like abbeys, who naturally do their calligraphy and they write their scripts and stuff, right?
But yeah, mainly, part of it is they just don't have people who would really work on it, and the other part is they have no interest in it because it is unshriveled risks and very dishonorable to use such weapons.
I suppose if you're populist for the most part, can't read, you can't give them an instruction manual how to go to musket, and then they're going to go, where's the others on the musket?
No, you can't milk it. It's a gun. What's a gun? Like, oh no.
They do use ranged weaponry sometimes. They just have the peasants do it, because naturally no knight can use a ranged weapon. It's very unshriveled risk, but the lowly peasants are, you know, they can do it.
That's kind of true to life as far as I understand. Like, for example, when archery was developed, that was a big thing where the peasants could make it because they had loads of trees.
They were like, oh, we can learn how to do this. It doesn't cost so much. And all the knights were like, what the fuck? Oh, my arm. Ow. What is this? And there was like a massive shift where it gave loads of power to the peasants to be like, oh, we can just shoot the knights from ranged.
One of them is bound to hit like a gap somewhere.
Yeah, I think it was the English longbows that they were killing all the French knights. I'm pretty sure.
Thankfully, that doesn't happen in this world because we have superpowers. So it's worth it. And guns.
But the people of the lower classes, they're not allowed to own gold, wear certain colors, have plate mail, or carry a weapon that would harm a knight. So the best you're probably going to get is like a cheese knife.
Yeah. You're not allowed too many pigs or cows. You've got a limit. Yeah. Literally.
These smaller areas are usually entrusted to knights who answer to someone such as a baron. And these nobles also have a standing army of men at arms who are granted slightly better lives than the general peasantry. And some even get small pieces of land. They're just the peasants who can walk and aren't plagued by, you know, various mutations from inbreeding or ailments in general.
Yeah. Who aren't sickly dying people. And so they find the fit peasants and they give them some armor and some shields and then they go off and fight in the fight for good old Bretonnia.
But their lives are probably a lot better. Well, they are a lot better than the actual normal peasants, it seems. Yeah. But the general populace of nobles are knights by rights and by law.
If you're born into it, you have to follow it. You don't have a choice if you want to be a knight or not. So that's kind of a good thing. They follow the lady of the lake and they must follow the code. They must follow the codes of chivalry and they must not use arranged weaponry.
As I said, this is left to the peasants. Many of these lords and some knights are incredibly powerful and honorable grail knights. Well, some are simply strong and good individuals. Some of course are corrupt as it is within any human society.
Along with these lords and ladies, there are various other random nobility and I didn't really want to figure out all the different titles.
Above these individuals are the dukes who rule the dukedoms and have full authority over their subjects. At the top is the Royarch or King who owns the entirety of the lands of Bretonnia, including everything and everyone in it.
The King has a royal court and generally only speaks to the upper echelons of society. That being said, the great man who currently sits atop the throne, Louen Leoncure, is willing to hear the case of anyone no matter their station.
Even above the King in authority is the Fae Enchantress as she is the voice of the Lady and her ward is respected above all in Bretonnia. In fact, it is the Enchantress who ultimately crowns the new kings. So it is the Lady. And naturally, women are very well respected in Bretonnia as their primary goddess is a woman and the head of their state is a woman.
That is slightly different to old medieval times. Mind you, there are no women knights, that is a male only profession, but the women are generally prophetesses or whatever, they're grail damsels who are taught by the Lady of the Lake and the Fae Enchantress.
So they have their own niche. They're like caste, yeah, obviously. We're not quite like, there's like the lower class and the upper class and we're like that weird middle class splinter. Just like, yeah, we do our own thing and we have privileges, fair enough.
Yeah. I mean, although Rapace is a woman and kind of a knight, I guess she's not technically a knight. I don't know. She's the exception to the role. Yeah, theoretically. There's a lot of titles and a lot of mixing and stuff. I was reading theoretically, Louie, or Lou and Leoncure is technically two people because he's the Duke of Coron, or sorry, of, not whatever.
He's the Duke of whatever the place is, the name I forgot, and he's also the King of Betonia at the same time.
I suppose, is the current King of England, is the King of England and the Duke of Normandy? Or has he passed that title on maybe? No, I have no idea. I know like world teams in today's time even are like, I'm this and this and this is like, oh, greedy.
But yeah, that's the general hierarchy, if that makes sense. I think it's, you know, just like a regular hierarchy. So it's not, it could be worse. It could be worse. Naturally, the Empire is a lot more bureaucratic.
And most of the Empire is more like middle class area, right? It's like, it's kind of like industrial, industrial revolution stuff, but not really, I guess, because it's not like cyberpunk revolution.
We got guns, but we're still telling the fields.
Hard to tell. My Empire lore needs to, I need to really touch up on all my fantasy lore. But it's much different than the Empire. It's the last nation of man who still uses feudalism as everyone else has kind of moved past it or decided they didn't like it and all that stuff.
So, their religion, you know, is the next most important part of their society naturally.
In Bretonnia, there is actually freedom of worship with some individuals worshipping gods that are common for the Empire.
As long as it's not chaos, I assume.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
No, not them. No, no, no. Put that six-pointed star, eight-pointed star down.
Yeah. More like, I don't know, Mor and Ashki, I think that's one of them.
Stuff like that. The Empire's gods, the Tiliens have their own gods, all that stuff. And you are allowed to worship whatever you want in Bretonnia. Sigmar is not generally one of these because he was a man.
So, you know, the Bretonian Inquisition.
This is Talos in Elder Scrolls. You're not allowed to worship Talos because he was a man. Oh, come off it. He's a god now. I saw it. It's real.
So the Bretonian Inquisition, which from what I can tell is a thing that exists, which is fun. They don't like Sigmar too much, but you are allowed to, technically.
It's kind of frowned upon. Not many people really do. The only people who are worshipping Sigmar are generally people who are from the Empire and now living in Bretonnia.
But yeah, unfortunately though, to worship a deity that isn't the Lady of the Lake is going to cost you a tax. And unfortunately, again, the peasants are not allowed to openly worship the Lady of the Lake as they are unworthy to worship her.
So, but, you know, of course you have to worship a god. That's the law. So, you know, if you're a peasant, you're just gonna have to pay the extra tax, I guess.
You can't be cheeky. I actually pray to the woman of the stream.
Unfortunately not.
It's not quite, it's not Gucci, it's Gukki. It's slightly different, you know.
Although, it is Chiron. I had the name right. I'm thinking Cargazone.
Although in Chiron, or what was it, let me see here. In one of the dukedoms, the peasants do actually worship the Lady, it seems.
So, I guess it just depends on where you live.
I guess whoever's in charge gets to say, oh, this is allowed, this isn't, I'm in charge.
Theoretically at least.
That's like, like I said, I guess it's inconsistent because each dukedom is gonna have their own set of rules and laws.
So you can't really blanket statement everything.
Because the Bretonnia also has very vast and diverse geography and land. So the dukedoms are quite different and I'll get into them in a bit.
But anyways, as I was saying, despite this, the cult of the Lady is still the largest religion in all of Bretonnia.
Because there's a lot of nobles and knights, I'm pretty sure.
And while peasants do not openly worship her at temples and the likes, they still believe in her and many will still pray to her in private.
Overall though, most peasants worship Shalia, a goddess of kindness and compassion who brings comfort to the hard life of a peasant.
Makes sense.
Yeah, apparently there's been heretical beliefs that Shalia is actually just in another form of the Lady of the Lake. It's just another operation that she takes on, which of course the good old Inquisition isn't a fan of that.
So get that out of here.
The cult of the Lady consists of the noble populace and middle class.
If you can really call it a middle class, because I'm still not sure.
Slightly upper and lower class.
Yeah, I guess.
Those who are not lords must pay a tax to the Lady and tithing is optional, of course, for higher-ranked nobles.
But you know, the knights must, the knights have to tithe.
All knights aspire to one day meet the Lady and sip from her grail. They uphold her honor and defend the good name of the Lady wherever they go.
Most knights are zealous and fervently follow the Lady, and the grail knights are the greatest amongst these.
You go, I believe it goes, you start as a heir into knights, just as a little guy, and then you go as a questing knight.
Which is, you know, you're going on your quest to find the Lady, and then you become a grail knight.
And a knight of the realm fits somewhere in there as well.
Do they have like squires who have their own little bonuses? Like, oh, you're a squire for a knight. It's like, better than a peasant.
I think so, yeah. I mean, technically a peasant can be anything that their noble wants them to be.
So maybe you might get to be a lucky peasant and a squire to it.
Yeah, you're real lucky.
Yeah, so grail knights have sought and found the Lady and are being directly blessed by her, drinking the lifeblood of the land from her grail, and they gain supernatural powers.
These grail knights are complete heroes whose honor and nobility is unquestionable.
They are the epitome of Bretonnia, the perfect image of the nation's ideals.
These men are bound to the Lady and the Fey Enchantress, and many roam the lands, slaying monsters and defending the weak, while others go to serve within a lord's army.
Many are paladins. I mean, and technically all grail knights are paladins, but paladins are also their own thing.
Paladins are individually blessed with superb might and martial skill, who are leagues higher than most knights of Bretonnia and easily greater than the best warriors of the Empire.
Grail knights are like actual space marines. If you put a space marine in Warhammer Fantasy, then they'd be the grail knights.
They also have like, on the tabletop they have a ward save, which is a save you can take against anything, so like, let's say a trebuchet shot hits your knight.
If you roll your 5+, he'll be okay. So he just took that trebuchet in the face.
It's but a scratch and just wipes his arm. Yeah, that's it. What's that mess you got? Come on.
They basically gain plot armor, and so missiles and ranged weapons just kind of don't hit them, or if they do they just bounce off from the magical powers and stuff like that.
And they have incredible vigor. They can fight for like days on or hours on end and without tiring. They're just super humans basically in Warhammer Fantasy.
Please tell me that armor is called grail mail.
If truly, if only. But it helps since we don't have guns and stuff in Bretonnia, then you might wonder like how are these guys not just like dead and worse than the Empire, but it's because they have all the crazy knights and stuff.
I mean, to be fair, they are mostly fighting like beast men and undead and orcs who on their own aren't gonna have, they don't have the guns or whatever anyways. It's not like the Bretonnians really fight the dwarves or anything.
Their power levels kind of works in their favor in those aspects and cavalry charge is pretty scary.
Yeah, and I suppose to be honest, even though it's like guns, they are muskets. So even if you've got really good armor, I guess you could probably take a few hits and would ping off where we don't need like dent your plate a little and you go, oh that wasn't so bad.
Cleave them in half, you know.
Yeah.
As long as you mean, yeah, basically, as long as you're not going against some dwarf like thunderous cannons.
With a massive blunderbuss pointed in your face with the unprotected visor.
Like, oh, that's not good. Gyrocopter bombs and stuff.
I don't, yeah, the dwarves are OP, but there's only, there's not many of them, I guess, which is why they aren't the rulers of Warhammer.
They once were, which I guess, Collin probably talked about that too.
So you guys can go watch the Collin episode on dwarves who fight side fantasy.
But I'll get back into Bretonia.
As I said before, the Fey Enchantress, also known as Morgiana the Fey, is the Lady's voice and holds absolute authority over the nation.
She is a powerful magic user who, through reincarnation, has lived for thousands of years.
Morgiana mentors the damsels of the Lady as she finds magical youth within the lands and takes them to a mysterious other world, which is where the Lady of the Lake resides.
She originally takes males and they are never heard of again.
I don't know, I'm just like, what's she doing with them? What's happening?
There's got to be some propaganda like, oh, I'm going to be chosen.
And you find out what happens and it's just terrible. Oh no, I thought she gave me a kiss.
I don't know if they ever reveal what happens to the males that she takes, but basically, if you're the magic users in Bretonia, when there are kids,
if they can see the future or food gets rotten when they're beside them or weird things like that,
the Fey Enchantress will usually visit them before they go through puberty or during one of the two.
Just when they're young and she'll take them and their family mourns them basically and acts like they're dead.
I mean, if they come back, but even if they do come back, they are kind of just they must serve the lady.
And here I was talking about them right now. I have it right here.
Damsels, as I said, are those children taken by Morgiana and trained to realize their true potential.
And they are highly respected within Bretonian society and are their magic users.
Grail Damsels have a complete autonomy within the land and serve only the ladies.
Their powers, their powers harness the forces of nature to aid the Bretonian armies, generally shielding them from evil and healing their wounds.
They also act as priestesses of the lady and advisors to nobles.
So they have a pretty nice position. Obviously, they can quite literally do whatever they want and just go wherever they want.
Just get away. Yeah, I do what I want. You got a problem? Talk to the lady. No, OK.
The Enchantress herself, though, is probably one of the most powerful casters in all of Warhammer.
Probably only rivaled by things of think guys like Teclis because OK, I was going to say he's like just elves because elves are usually quite magic.
Good at magic. But the Fey Enchantress is pretty elfy. So, you know, she's pretty high up there.
She's elf-lite. Said that she can kill you with a glance, basically.
She's pretty strong. She's certainly the most powerful caster in the old world, easily, for sure.
And she rides to war with her grail knights in the times of Diad.
Moving on, unless you have any questions. No, I'm good to go.
So if we talk about the armies, the armies of Protonia generally consist of a lord, a paladin, a damsel, valorous and skilled knights, great trebuchets, men-at-arms and when the situation calls for it, scores of peasantry.
The kingdom does not technically have an actual standing military and the armies are created usually through calls to war.
The king will call upon a baron who will call upon his lord, who will call upon his knights, who will call upon his men-at-arms and peasants and so on.
In any conflict, it will be common for the Protonian force to have far more cavalry than the enemy and they often rely on the great trampling charge that comes forth from these knights.
Obviously, the hammer and anvil tactic is also employed greatly as the somewhat armored and trained men-at-arms hold the enemy at bay for the knights to crash into their flanks.
There are no cowardly weapons such as cannons or guns within these armies and only peasants will have bows or man-at-trebuchets which are tolerated.
When one has the blessing of the lady, they need no such things as oftentimes ranged attacks will simply miss them or be deflected by the magical properties granted to such knights.
The peasants are naturally not overly useful for much more than being bodies with weapons and they usually just make for at least a good distraction.
But under the authority of a proper and chivalrous knight, they may be pushed to some degree of actual martial skill, however small it may be.
Each peasant must learn how to fire a bow and the lucky ones get to use this skill instead of being sent to the front line.
That being said though, the peasant bowmen and peasants in general do have to bring their own gear to the battlefield.
Their own gear that they've bought with their 10% profit from their titan. Oh no, assuming they're not worshipping the lady and are actually paying 95% tax plus the possible tax wherever the duke is like.
Oh by the way, we're doing a water tax so that's another percentage. Oh I can buy myself a slingshot.
Yep, a lot of taxes. A lot of taxes.
It probably depends on what lord you have in the land. I'm sure there's a good chance that some knights or lords will provide their peasants with something.
It's encouraged for them all to learn how to use bows just from a young age. I assume they probably know how to make bows at that point.
If not, they likely get some equipment every once in a while. Generally they're showing up with the clothes on their back and the pitchfork from their backyard.
They stand in the way for a little bit for the trebuchets to shoot at the enemy or the knights of charge.
I know you said they don't have a standing army as such but as far as scale goes, I know the peasants probably have the vast majority. Are they equal in terms of size to the empire or a bit smaller? Is there a good way to explain what the comparisons are?
I believe Petonia is one third the size of the empire. Something like that. One third or one quarter. They are the largest nation of man seconds to the empire.
And they are nowhere near as many as the skaven or the orcs.
No, definitely not. But obviously one grail knight is equal to literally a thousand skavens. It works out.
As the general armies, they're not overly complicated. They're fun though.
I think I'll talk about the heroes now before I talk about all the dukedoms because the dukedoms are a little bit less exciting.
Yeah, we'll do that. I won't save the best for last. I'll save the best for right now.
Probably one of the more important heroes, the cooler one in my opinion, is the green knight.
There's not much on him because he's a pretty mysterious individual. He just has done a lot of really epic things like 1v1s or 1v5s, giants basically, and defeats entire armies.
He is the sacred protector of Bretonnia and the judge that tests all questing knights who seek the grail.
He is a mysterious and ghostly being who appears at random whenever he is needed most.
He contains the power to rout armies and slay the champions of every variety.
The beastmen call him the soul killer and he is rightfully feared by the mutants.
I've had another Blood Angels comparison with him in the Sanguinnor series. He turns up occasionally, he's kind of ethereal, he's a bit strong, but he's not red and gold.
He's green. He's kind of like Grombrindal. I don't know if Colin talked about Santa Claus.
Grombrindal just kind of shows up when he's needed and then kicks butt and leaves.
Although I know the Sanguinnor is really really strong, but he doesn't actually try to decimate his enemies.
He's more like, I'm a helping hand. He doesn't actually turn up that often.
He doesn't just go, and we want an overwhelming victory because that's not his style. He's like, no, I'll just chip in because I'm not supposed to do all the heavy lifting.
Oh, why not? I don't know, because I'm the Sanguinnor.
I believe on the tabletop, the Green Knight has the ethereal rule, so you can't actually wound him unless you have a magical weapon.
Wow. As long as that rule stayed the same from when I played Warhammer Fantasy.
Okay. So if you just insert him in the middle of someone's arm and they're like, I've only got melee units.
Oh well. Basically, because he's a ghost, basically. Ghost or demon or apparition or something weird like that.
Who are you going to call? Charles Leprechaun.
Yeah, truly. He has not really explained what he really is, but it works.
It's also not really ever explained who the Lady of the Lake, what she really is until the end times.
And like I said, we don't talk about the end times, so it doesn't count.
Okay. She's not an elf. Yeah, that's right. She's not an elf.
Definitely not. Can't be. No.
Even if she is an elf, it's okay. Honestly, I'm not even sure if she's an elf.
In the end times, I'll briefly say the end times from what I remember, basically, the elves said that Bretonnia is just a meat shield for chaos.
And they tricked them into just being there so that the elves could fight chaos after them.
From what I can tell, that's what it was. And that sucks. Just bad writing. The end times didn't happen. We all know that.
Old World's coming back. It's just a bad dream.
And I see Bretonnia on the front cover of Old World, so you know what? I think we're winning. I think we're winning right now.
Anyways, though, back to the Green Knight. When a questing knight goes out for the grail, he will eventually be approached by the Green Knights, and they will duel.
If the young man must defeat the Green Knight to receive the Lady's Blessing.
Of course, the Green Knight could slay them in an instant, but the battle is more about testing their strength and valor and honor.
And so he kind of gauges what kind of person they are and how they fight, and if they're really worthy of receiving the Blessing of the Lady.
And then that's kind of more of how you win the battle, more so than actually being more powerful than the Green Knight, because obviously the Green Knight wouldn't work. He would just kill you.
It kind of reminds me of Asriel in the Dark Angels. I think when he becomes chapter master, there's these weird spectral knights that come from the banners, and they're like, who do you serve?
And they start attacking him, and he's like, the Emperor? They're like, no, who do you serve? Humanity? No.
And they just start battering him. He's like, just the Dark Angels. I only serve them. And then they recede.
Oh, it was just a test of being like, they're more important than the Emperor, they're more important than the Imperium, the Dark Angels are the most important thing. Don't forget.
That sounds like how the horse hairs happened.
Yeah, a little bit.
Wow. But that's the Green Knight. He's pretty cool. He's pretty badass on the tabletop, and he's really fun to use in war, in total war, because you just get this little button, and then you can put him down wherever in the enemy army, and he explodes and comes out and kills everybody.
He's pretty awesome.
I have a PDF of the Bretonian army book, but it's on one of the websites that makes you watch an ad before you can see a single freaking page.
So maybe we'll go without his rules for now. That's okay. He'll come back in Old World though, I sure hope. I really, really hope.
I mean, I assume he's like the flagship unit, but he's the most popular thing from the faction, or at least the most iconic, I would say.
Probably. It's either him or the guy who I'm going to talk about next, who is Lewin Leoncurr.
He is the current king of Bretonia, and from what I can tell, the most powerful man alive by a long shot.
You put Karl Franz in front of this guy, and he folds Karl Franz into two, and just kicks him like a ball over your neighbor's fence and leaves him there.
I'm sure Colin will have some words about that statement.
Maybe my Karl Franz lore isn't read up upon, but I'm pretty sure Karl Franz is just a guy who is kind of the blessing of Sigmar.
He's just a swell guy who's doing his best.
In the end times Karl Franz gets super strong, but this isn't the end times, so I'm going to keep you up.
As a young man, Lewin took the questing vow, and he was younger than perhaps any before him.
For many years he wandered Bretonia, slaying beasts, and lending his aid to all those in need.
He was a paragon of chivalry, defending all no matter their situation. In these days they called him Leoncurr, which is lion-hearted.
During one of his quests he rescued the prophetess Carolinda, and she blessed him, giving him superhuman strength.
He later fought none other than the Green Knight himself in his duel to prove himself.
Their duel was intense and legendary, and after a grueling battle, Lewin proved himself worthy and defeated the Apparation.
He actually cuts the Green Knight's head off, and then the Green Knight kneels down and picks his head up and puts it back on.
I'm just imagining him like, just putting his hat like padding the floor, like, where's my head, where's my head, where's my head.
I can see it in my eyes, but I can't see where they are in relation to my body.
He's like, that's never happened before, sorry, this will only take a minute. Click.
There was a nice moment where the Green Knight knocks Lewin off of his horse, and so then the Green Guy gets off of his horse as well.
As he, you know, is very chivalrous.
He's like, don't forget the chivalry, that's the whole point.
He would later find the lady herself and gain her blessing. He drank from the grail and his power became absolute.
Some people even say he got a little smooch from the lady. Possibly.
Just a little peck on the cheek. Just a little, yeah.
Say, ooh, I like you. Very good.
And then the Green Knight's like, I didn't get a kiss.
Tough stuff. Tough stuff.
For the next 40 years, he continued to quest throughout the land.
And yet, Grail Knights, from what I can tell, are essentially, they're either immortal or they age at a much slower pace.
Yeah. Because one of, yeah, one of Giles' buddies died when he was like 160, and he died in battle.
And he was a Grail Knight, right?
Yeah. He was one of the Grail companions, even.
Oh, wow.
Which I guess are more powerful. But yeah, anyways, he quested for 40 years throughout the land, again, defeating the greatest foes he could find and growing ever higher in the lady's favor.
And finally, he returned home to inherit the throne of his father, who had passed away.
He first reinstated the Grand Tournament, which drew in the mightiest warriors of the land.
Yet no one could defeat Luwin.
So every night, basically, every most skilled knight from every dukedom came to fight Luwin, and they lost every time.
And I don't think it was only fighting either. I think there were multiple events. So he's already proven himself to just be like crazy.
It's like chess boxing. It's like, we'll have a quick duel, and then we're going to do like throwing javelins at targets, and then we're going to have a quick game of, what's it called, where it's like the army game, Ruse?
Is it Ruse? No.
Risk?
Risk. We'll play a quick game of Risk, and then we're back on the horse.
Yeah.
There's a game show where I was surprised, America thing. It was like a whack at wipeout, wipeout. He was a...
Oh yeah, wipeout. There's a UK version as well. Yeah.
I like to think Bretonnia Knights were doing stuff like that.
Or like Takeshi's castle, just like, oh, he's going to fall off the thing. Oh dear.
He proved his skill in all aspects of kingship, politics, warfare, trade, and the likes.
Time and time again, he has led his armies to victories against every single threat posed to his kingdom.
Not once has the king broken the vows of chivalry, and he's willing to hear the pleas of any of his subjects, be they peasant or lord.
From what I can tell, he has never been defeated ever in all of Warhammer history.
He is essentially immune to magic, and I don't think he is even human anymore.
Whenever he is wounded, shining liquid light pours forth from his body, and the wound is healed immediately.
So he's basically, I think he's basically like a demigod at this point.
I'm assuming this is all because of that grail water. Like, you got a good goal for that stuff. Made him well strong.
Bath water and a smoot, and that's all you need.
Yeah, it was the kiss that did it. It was like, just the kiss was enough to make him be like, for the lady.
It's like a Looney Tunes type of cartoon. He flies up a little bit.
With his acne sword, like, let's go!
So he's basically immortal and nearly invincible, and just stupidly powerful.
He has also, again from what I can tell, never lost a single battle within war, leading his armies to victory as his long life and many blessings have granted him wisdom beyond any other mortal generals.
He has proven himself a pristine diplomat as well, being buddies with Mr. Carl Franz, and he's trusted and honored by all the forces of good within the Old World.
A little bit about his war gear. He has the Crown of Bretonnia, and it shines with the Lady's Blessing to inspire everybody around it.
On the tabletop, I think it basically made everyone within 12 inches or something, or 18 inches, immune to panic, which was just like their running away check, if that makes sense.
His blade is known as the Sword of Corone, and has been passed down through generations, and has been enchanted by the Mirror Pools of the Great Forest, and shines with a blinding and burning light.
His shield is the Lion's Shield. It has been blessed and reinforced time and time again, and gives him incredible protection against magic.
Atop his Hippogriff…
Not to be confused with the Lion's Shield in 40k, which is actually the Emperors Shield.
Not that Lion's Shield, it's this Lion's Shield.
That's right, this one's cool. Atop his Hippogriff, Byakki, he rides to battle. He is raised Great Street from birth, and it is as capable a warrior as any knight of the nation.
So, on the tabletop, Louis rules. Let's see, he has the Puscent Virtue, and while Sawali is fighting and challenges, he can rid her of all any failed rolls to hit or to wound, but he must always accept the second result.
Lewin also counts as having the Virtue of Purity, which is just another rule. He is the beloved son of Bretonnia. If he is removed as a casualty, all Bretonnia units must take a panic test. They all, for the rest of the battle, they count as being stubborn.
And then, he's the army of the king. When he goes to war, the finest warriors of Bretonnia march with him. The 0-1 restriction on Grail Knights is lifted.
When Lewin is Jeznaril, however, men at arms and bowmen become special choices. So, he can take a whole bunch of Grail Knights with him, but you can take less men at arms and bowmen, it looks like.
It's pretty cool, I think. He's the Lady's Champion, so he bears a blessing even more potent than others who have slipped from the Grail. He will always have the blessing of the Lady, even if the army did not pray.
Oh, you had to pray before you... Oh, that man, Warhammer Fancy was so cool. What the heck, how did they get rid of this stuff? In addition to the wards save he receives from the blessing, Lewin Kerr has regeneration so he gets his wounds back.
However, the Lady's Code is so integral to his nature that if Lewin Kerr flees for any reason, fails to rally, or refuses to challenge, he will immediately take a wound with no saves of any kind allowed, and will lose the blessing. He will, however, maintain his regeneration.
Alright, so moving on to his items. The Crown of Bretonnia, it's looking like friendly troops may use his leadership characteristic when he is within 18 inches, and any unit with line of sight to him is immune to panic. That's pretty good.
The Sword of Caron, so the sword confers plus one strength in addition to any foe in base contact with Lewin at the beginning of any close combat, must take a leadership test. If this is failed, that model may make no attacks this round and will be hit automatically, because it says that it shines with a dazzling, blinding light.
Finally, the Lion's Shield counts as a normal shield, in addition Lewin has a magic resistance value equal to the total number of dice used in the casting of any spell that affects him. This can exceed the normal limit for magic resistance. For example, if a fireball is targeted at Lewin using 4 dice to cast, he will have magic resistance 4, so he gets 4 opportunities to cast.
Well, so that's pretty cool. He has some cool rules, naturally, unsurprisingly, as he should. But moving on to just one more hero, because I figured I shouldn't talk about every single Bretonnian noble to ever exist.
And also because there aren't actually many, I think a lot of the heroes were actually made for total war. They existed in the lore, they just didn't really have rules, I don't think, from what I can tell just looking at it. But my favorite Bretonnian, who I talked about a little bit earlier, is Raponce de Leonesse, who is literally just Joan D'Arc in Warhammer, and I'm a big Joan D'Arc fan, of course.
In the times of old, this was before Lewin Leoncur, I believe, Coronne had been invaded by Chaos and largely destroyed, seeing the current king slain. As the raiders dispersed through the Lafayere land, Raponce's village within Leonesse was attacked.
The lady appeared to Raponce and told her to drive the evils from the land. So the young peasant girl opened the local grail chapel, took the sword and of course a fleur de lis banner, and she also donned a set of plate armor from a dead knight and mounted a loose warhorse and rode to battle.
Seeing such bravery from a peasant girl, the knights were convicted and took up arms to follow her. Their armies crashed through the forces of Chaos, and with the lady's blessing all around her, Raponce slew the enemy Chaos Lord and saved the nation.
She would become the Duchess of Leonesse, gifted to her by King Louis the Young. So, peasant to Duchess, that's pretty cool.
Nice.
It's very... Warhammer's not very original.
Whenever I think of Joan of Arc, I think of Bill and Ted. When the first movie she joins the band and they go adventuring and she's like, oh, and then she's praying all of a sudden there's the telephone box and they just reach out and she joins them and then they go for the shopping mall and she's trying, she's like dancing to stuff, trying to fight the security guards.
I've not seen this.
The first movie, Bill and Ted's in Excellent Adventure, she's in it. It's good fun.
Nice. I will check that out. That sounds fun. But yeah, those are some of the highlights of the heroes. I'm a big fan of them. I talked about more of Gianna earlier, the fey enchantress, so she's obviously a very important one.
She rides upon a unicorn, I'm pretty sure, or Pegasus. I know it's a unicorn, it's totally a unicorn, because the damsels sometimes ride on unicorns, which is fun.
Lastly, I have the dukedoms to talk about. I only wrote a little bit of them because there's 15 of them. So I didn't want to bore you all with my geography lesson. I think they're all pretty cool, but I only did a little bit.
I'm going from north of Bretonnia to south of Bretonnia, and starting with Chorone. This is probably the one Colin makes fun of the most because they really like horses. Is it also the closest to the Empire? Like geographically, I'm trying to think where it is.
No, that would be, I think it's Peruvian. So they're not all clustered in one landmass, are they? Are they just all over the place?
Yeah. Well, they're all just on the Bretonniian province, or I mean, country. Yeah. They're all on the same country, though.
I'll put a map up on the footage. Chorone is the Bretonnius dukedom, and is ruled by current king Lew and Leon Kurt.
They have the best horses in the entire land, which is naturally saying a lot as Bretonniian horse stock is already extremely high quality everywhere else.
The people of this land are obsessed with horses, and the culture has even become part of their politics. Instead of an assassination attempt or political ploy, a rival will instead try to sabotage their enemy's horse in a horse race.
And that will be, yeah. Is it confirmed, are there laws where you're not allowed to injure a horse?
Because I like, for example, when I think of India, where they're not allowed to injure cows and such because they're sacred.
Is that the case with Bretonnius? Like, oh, if you're a peasant, you're not even allowed to impede a horse just grazing anywhere. No, it's important. Leave it alone.
That's a good question. I don't actually know, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a thing. But even peasants in Chorone, though, generally have ridden a horse before, which is nice.
But so these people allegedly are riding horses before they have even learned to walk. And the best knights usually come from this dukedom, naturally.
Moving on, moving down, I guess I should say we have La Anguille.
Again, I'll probably say many of the names wrong. I don't care. It's French. It's difficult.
This is the Oceanic dukedom of Bretonnia and lies on its northern shores. As a result, it is one of their trade hubs containing a great port city.
Much of the wealthier middle class resides here as it is ripe for trade and potential.
It is shielded by its neighboring dukedoms and bears a good weather, meaning fruitful harvest for its beautiful countryside away from its ports.
So it mainly consists of two different types of people, the city people and the countryside people, basically.
And it's the classic countryside, like, oh, those dang city slickers have never worked a good day in their life type of thing.
They don't have to use a plow or up in those cities in their office blocks. They've never worked. No calluses on their fingers. I wouldn't.
Trust them as far as I could throw them.
Lioness is an entire dukedom of petty schemers. The lay of the land has allowed these people to erect vast and impregnable fortifications, giving them essentially no external threats.
As a result, with no enemy to fight against, they turn to each other to stage their need for conflict.
The rivalries last generations and the dukedom will likely never gain unity.
Lioness is massive and many of its villages are actually upon islands.
It is sad to see them in such disunity, though, as the dukedom has a rich history and has fought many valiant battles.
Where Ponce was from, Lioness as well.
So how does that work with their chivalric values if they're always in fighting? Is it just, oh, we're allowed to be a bit naughty as long as we don't, like, spit in your eyes or, like, do anything, or stab you in the back or?
I mean, they're not really supposed to fight at all. So this is one of the examples of a less chivalric people.
Pushing the limits of chivalry, like, oh, I didn't throw you down the stairs. I merely tripped you down the stairs.
Oh, yeah, yeah. And there weren't cowtrops on the stairs either, so it could have been worse.
Like, hmm, don't I, mate?
Yeah, yeah, basically.
But Theoril the Lionhearted was said to be Giles' most loyal companion and even married his sister, and he's from Lioness.
So truly, it is very sad to see the state that they are now in.
Artois is a duc'tum almost entirely covered in forest.
The majority of its populace resides in the small section of open land, but some villages lay within the dark woods.
Within these woods lurks many great beasts and foul beastmen of chaos.
The people who live in the open land are hardy and adventurous, while those residing within the forest are isolationists to the extreme.
So dangerous is the forest that the people hold funerals for those who leave and assume they are undead if they ever return.
Oh, no.
Good old superstitious Protonians.
I'm assuming they're quite superstitious then.
Yeah, quite. This place is home to some of the most noble and good men to be part of Protonian nobility.
They fight hard against evils and many treat their peasants very well.
One particular baron even brings his peasants to La Anguille every year. So, nice guy.
That's a good example. It was a bad example in Lioness, and now Artois is a good example of actually good.
Go from one end of the spectrum to the other. Oh, scumbags. And then, Paragon. Lovely.
And naturally, when your village in the woods is being attacked once a year, at least by beastmen, everybody needs to know how to fight and be in generally decent condition if they want to survive.
And you're going to grow bonds of friendship and camaraderie. I remember when we cut off that beastman's head a year or two ago, and you saved my life.
Yeah, you're my best friend. You're my best friend. You looked after my horse when I was on holiday. You're my best friend.
Truly. You'd make a good Protonian, clearly.
Gisero. I don't know. Gisero. Gisero. I don't want to say it. Gisero, maybe? I don't know.
Sure. It is a dukedom with a diverse geography, and as a result, home to multiple different cultures. Farmers, trappers, woodsmen, and mountaineers reside within their respective regions, and the people of the dukedom are kind and welcoming, granting shelter and a good meal to any visitors who come through their lands.
Montfort is a dukedom almost entirely residing within the Grey Mountains. They sit between Bretonnia and the Empire. So this is one of the ones that would be closest to the Empire.
I think there's only three passes through the mountain, and then there's three dukedoms that are on the mountain, and those are the ways to get to the Empire, basically.
The people of Montfort are tough and harsh, and they live in hostile conditions, constantly battling against greenskin invaders. They have a hatred and distrust for all beings non-human, so even dwarves and elves and halflings, they just don't like them.
Is that just specifically them, or does Bretonnia have a weird... You mentioned about how they work with the dwarves. Are they actually quite chill when it comes to other species, or are they like, no, we don't like them?
I think they're pretty good, because they work with the dwarves and the wood elves sometimes. The Bretonian nobles, the greatest knights are some of the only ones allowed to ever enter into Athelborn.
99% of other human beings who enter Athelborn are never going to come out, because the wood elves are very...
To be honest as well, if you think of an Empire guy just walking in, he smells of soot and he's been working in the factories. You're bringing smog into the forest. Get out of here! Go and have a bath!
One of these duketims has part of the Athelborn forest in their duketum, and the wood elves let them be there. That's nice. That'll come up.
Musalan is the spooky, wooky, dark and bleak duketum. It has lost its official status and has no recognized ruler.
Malnourished mutant beings reside here, and the lands are covered in swamp. The most healthy individuals are those who come from the outside, and these are generally the scum of humanity who come to seek shelter in the one place no authority would care enough to follow them in.
It is a horribly miserable place and rundown and disgusting. Many of the nobles of this land have reigned for suspiciously long amounts of time, as they are actually undead.
Musalan was once home to great knights, but is now nothing but a land of shadows.
They used to have grail knights, now they have fail knights.
They have pretty cool black knights and stuff, though. The bastard son of Luwin Leoncur, or at least allegedly bastard son. I think in the End Times it's confirmed that he is.
So I don't know. Choose it if you want to believe it then sure. But the guy who's the ruler of the land, who's called the Black Knights, is allegedly the bastard son of Luwin Leoncur.
So, wacky.
Bastogne is the duketum which Giles himself hailed from and is at the heart of Bretonnia. It holds the cathedral of the Cult of the Lady and holds the most grail knights in all the kingdom.
Unfortunately, not all the people have grail knights and the residents of these lands are extremely arrogant. They still cling to the fact that their duketum was made by Giles.
And they believe themselves to be far superior to the rest of Bretonnia. It is said that the peasants of Bastogne openly worshiped the lady. So that's neat.
I guess they're allowed to. They're like, what are you going to do about it? The green knight will come and get you. He'll get you. Let's do what we want. He's well cool. Yep.
So I think there was a little quote that I saw just in response to something that some guy from Bastogne said and then the other guy just says, okay, but who's the king now? And yeah.
And then he was like.
Well, my dad was Giles the Breton.
He hasn't been on the phone for several years. Mine's the best. Mine's the best one.
So I'm going to talk about a little bit of a border low. I don't know if I've said it right at all in this podcast, but that's okay. It's the wine country of Bretonnia and it shows the general population is perpetually drunk. I was going to say I'm loving the idea of grail knights.
You were my cup. You even the course is like trotting along a little bit drunk. That's awesome. Even the peasants here can afford the wine because it's so cheap.
Not all the people here are alcoholics though. Those who work hard generally become experienced sailors as border low border low has many ports and stuff like that. They thrive off of trade, similar to the angle.
The coastal people worship Manan the sea god. Pretty neat. Paravon is another mountainous ductum that divides Bretonnia and the empire. The castles of this land are built high upon cliffs and mountain tops and the ductum is home to the largest concentration of Pegasi.
So they have lots of Pegasus Knights as well, which as the name sounds, they're just Knights who ride Pegasus, which is the flying Knights. Can't go wrong with that.
The other part of the ductum lies within Athol Lorne and the wood elves have permitted the people to reside there. As a result, Paravonian people are known to be extremely cautious with their movements, not disturbing anything wherever they go anywhere.
Naturally, if you're in Athol Lorne and you break a tree branch by accident, you have your arrows in your back. You accidentally brush past a daffodil and some of the petals fall off. Oh no, I've done a violation of our agreement. Oh no, I'm causing mayhem.
The elves are merciless too, the wood elves. They're crazy. Oh, you trod on our petals, therefore we are going to flay you. Oh no, please, I'm more of an innocent, I don't have much.
The populace though travels all across Paravon and it is a tradition for the people to have ventured the entire ductum throughout their lives, again making me wonder about the freedom of travel rules and if they are as strict as they are made out to seem.
Maybe it's a place to place basis, like I said. Aquitaine is simultaneously the most beautiful land in Bretonnia and the most violent, with a gentle and calm geography and no external threats just like lioness the people result to fighting each other.
Feuds, revolutions, civil wars, and the likes are constant, yet it also has made these people particularly strong and brave. The poor duke tries his best to resolve these conflicts, but it is an impossible task. Despite this, it is a jewel in Bretonnia and any traveler would be lucky to see it.
Quinelles is a large ductum that has a nasty orc problem. The land envelops massive oracle, a place that has held greenskins for many years. If you play Total War, that's the one orc settlement just in the middle of Bretonnia that's just randomly sitting there.
Some believe that the land is cursed by the long lost dead that were killed by the orcs before, and the Quinelles hate the orcs probably just as much as the dwarves, which is saying a lot because the dwarves hate more than probably anybody in Warhammer.
Other than maybe the skaven. Everyone would say they hate them more because they're like, you blow up our stuff, Mikey.
In fact, many adventuring knights seek to aid the dwarves in the eradication of the greenskins and take up arms with them. So there is a little dwarf and Bretonnian collaboration.
Would it be fair to say they have better ties of friendship with the dwarves than say the Empire?
I don't know. I think the Empire is their greatest ally. I mean, the dwarves, although they're really nice, they're still dwarves, so they're not humans. They don't really share the same things. And the dwarves are still generally suspicious of everybody.
Especially the guys sipping on their grails like, hello there, Pip Pip. I don't know about you guys, you're a bit arrogant.
Bretonni is the Empire's greatest ally and also greatest rival. So naturally, I don't know if they've ever really fought for an extended amount of time before. I think they have fought, but not often. They're generally pretty nice. And especially with Lewin being the diplomat that he is, they're usually on good terms. So that works.
Brion is another land of beauty with people who absolutely love art. They are obsessed with making the best, most gorgeous architecture and some of the greatest and cleanest towns in the land. Unfortunately, at a whim, they may tear it all down and build it again to make it look better.
They also sacrifice practicality for aesthetics. Yes, they live in a very safe place, so it's fine. It is a dukedom of romance and poetry, with love being a well-respected thing. Each citizen is a poet at heart, or at least they think they are. And it is a very dramatic place with the politics being akin to a Shakespeare type of play with, you know, love and affairs and all that stuff. Yeah. They're a fun bunch of fellas.
Okay, with duked deaths in their history.
Yep. Long last we have Carcassonne, which is probably my favorite dukedom. And it holds potentially the most able peasants. They are very militaristic people who are constantly battling the orcs upon their southern border, even though lowly peasants have been trained and are relatively skilled warriors. This naturally makes the Knights of Carcassonne incredible fighters. The whole nation is made up of noblemen, whether peasant or lord, as they all are, or of noble men.
It's two words, not one word.
Whether peasant or lord, as they all strive to fight so that their nation does not have to. They have a love for art and poetry, as well as just like their neighbors, feeling such things close to their hearts, as these are the things that they may enjoy because they fight to maintain Bretonnia's safety and freedom.
So, they're pretty awesome. And that's the dukedoms.
Nice.
Overall, that is a fairly basic overview of Bretonnia as a whole.
But again, I must say even with that last week we were talking about the dukedom that's very into art and everything, I was just there going like, black angels, black angels, grails, art, the noble, immaterial being that saves them in the Dark Staraphy.
Because I was worried that I had written too much but I think that was a good length.
Yeah, that was good fun.
Have I convinced you that Bretonnia is not so bad?
Yeah.
At least in the slightest.
I'm intrigued to see about how the Grail Knights operate in combat because they just sound so juiced up. I know you said space marines but I feel like maybe Custodi is a bit more their level of like, oh they're pretty much the apex human fighter, other than named big, big, big characters like Gottrick or Felix.
Oh, we've got some plot armor to help.
Yeah, and I like, here's the thing, because they are very much like we're all chivalrous, and we do all the, are they somewhat hampered by the stories that you can tell about them are very like you can only do these specific things and so you can't have a Grail Knight who forgoes chivalry and becomes like, oh we don't talk about that guy but he's also a legendary character in the setting because that's not what we're about.
Because I know you said there's only a few characters of like proper note. And when I've been doing for example characters like the Blood Angels I did Astaroth the Grim and I was like, oh it's like, he's pretty grim.
That's all he is, it's like oh there's not really much to talk about, he's just, he's a grim guy, and I feel like that's the case with Bretonnia to an extent.
Yeah, they are slightly one dimensional, like their, their entire history of Bretonnia is just them fighting battles and winning the impossible odds just kind of over and over again.
There are some wacky characters like Merovich, the guy who drank the blood of the king.
But yeah, I mean, they are slightly one dimensional, I'll admit that there is a story I haven't read the book I really would like to but there's a story where a knight of Bretonnia travels through time in Athel Loren and slays a dragon to save his wife, and that's the classic nightly tales like that.
And his name was Royal George, King Royal George, killed the dragon, wink, don't worry.
But if you would start off with Bretonnia, if for example you're someone who's a newbie like me and you're like I want to get into Bretonnia, would you suggest either a book or getting into the Total War hammer games or is there a good place to start?
Finding the army book PDF online is the probably the easiest to digest naturally.
I would really like to read more fantasy books. It's been a long time since I've really done any of that stuff.
So we'll need I want to do a beginner to expert, maybe someday after I've read like five Bretonnia novels, because I don't know if there's that many of them, but I'd love to read them.
It looks like there is a Knights of Bretonnia omnibus. So that's kind of a, it's always a good place to start in Warhammer stuff, right? The omnibus is a very...
I've still got my word bearers omnibus that I haven't started. And I've been working through the Blood Angels omnibus and I'm about half, I'm like 600 pages out of 1000 through it and I'm like, oh, it's so good, but it's very, it's definitely like old Warhammer, where it's like, oh, they're still calling them legions when it's the adeptus astatis and oh, it's a bit more gritty, but there's some really fun stories in them.
Yeah. Yeah. So unfortunately, don't know too many books that I could recommend, but I think the omnibus is usually a good start for most things, right?
Yeah.
But other than that, as the local Bretonnia expert, I want to thank you for telling us about the Grail Knights and all their antics. Mr. Andy. If you were to cap off the episode with a kind of pitch on why you think people should get into Bretonnia, do you have anything you'd like to say?
Sure, I think just Bretonnia has the coolest heroes in Warhammer. And when you have the bad bunch, but once you get to the good guys in Bretonnia, they're like really good guys, and they're very noble, honorable men, some of the best men in all of Warhammer, with some of the craziest deeds and most inspiring tales.
And if you like, you know, like Knights of the Round Table type of stuff and that aesthetic, then you know, is right up your alley, obviously, just like the Knights in general, the aesthetic is awesome. Like I said before, the Bionicle, Megablox Knights, you can't go wrong.
So yeah, overall, it's just beautiful. The people all work together. They're fairly unified, unless you live in like Leoness. Yeah, I just really like how dedicated they are to the lady as well, you know, naturally. And yeah, it's nice. It's always fun to call your wife the lady of the lake and stuff. Might as well, you know, try to be the questing Knights in real life.
And you pay a lot of tax.
Yeah, don't worry about that part. If you're a Knight, you don't have to pay as much tax. So yeah, spend on anyway, you've got your horse, you got your sword, anything else, maybe a beer one.
And it's kind of fun that they're dudes who have been just like blessed with divine power, they don't need guns or missiles or bombs and stuff like all the crazy other dwarves and Empire men, they just have horses and good old fashioned horses and lances and they may they get the job done.
I was just minding with that Skyrim meme of the box. I was just like, fool, Skyrim has guns and it's just him with his arms.
That's right. That's right. They have basically Space Marines in Warhammer fantasy so.
But not Age of Sigmar Space Marines, the other ones.
Don't bring that up. They don't even get to be in Age of Sigmar. They're fan fiction. They're made up. It's a lie. And when the Empire barely even exists, like trick or whatever. I don't know my Age of Sigmar lore very well. I just know that a lot of people speculated that Bretonnia got turned into the flesh eater courts.
And the ghouls are all about how they are. They think that they're like chivalrous honorable knights in like a beautiful land, but they're actually all crazy ghouls who are just schizos and stuff and eating people.
Oh, anyway, that was an absolutely lovely episode. I had a lot of fun learning about the Knights of Bretonnia. This is our last episode of the year, but I thought it'd be fitting. We've had a lot of requests for Bretonnia. But if anyone has any suggestions on what we could talk about next time, please let us know in the comments.
It's been good to have Eli on Fireside. This time we've now all been on an episode. So maybe we can come back and do another discussion about something else in fantasy. We'll see. Have a think about what we could do.
But other than that, thanks everyone for watching, and we'll catch you all on the next one. Bye everyone.
Farewell. Love you. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.