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PROCEDURAL ENCOUNTER TABLE

Tip: The Procedural Encounters table will generally produce homogenous encounters with only a single creature type. Although it requires more dice rolling (and some creative interpolation to explain the results), you can quickly generate mixed encounters by rolling twice and halving the number of creatures of each type appearing (round up).

You may discover that it’s actually easier to improvise creative encounters by generating mixed results, because the pairing of different devil types will spur your creativity in explaining what they’re doing together.

STYX ENCOUNTERS

ENVIRONMENTAL ENCOUNTERS

ROCKS OF THE DAMNED: Some of the rocks in Avernus seem to have tormented faces etched into them.

BONEFIELD: A field of bleached bones lying half-buried in the dunes or choking a razor-sharp ravine These are remnants of some ancient battle. (Avernian bonefields often feature titanic skeletons that will tower over the PCs.)

AVERNIAN FIREBALLS: Travelers in Avernus are periodically plagued with balls of flaming energy that spontaneously erupt without apparent reason. They inflict 5d6 fire damage, with a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw for half damage.

INFERNAL WRECK: 1d3 wrecked infernal war machines. The PCs can likely scavenge parts from them. There’s a 1 in 6 chance that the machine can be repaired without completely overhauling it.

OPPRESSIVE CONDITION: Trigger an oppressive condition, as described in Part 7B. This will exist in addition to any oppressive conditions already present.

AVERNIAN WARLORDS

See Part 7E: Warlords of Avernus for more details on the warlords. You can roll on the table below to randomly determine which warlord’s faction has been encountered. There is a 1 in 4 chance that the warlord is present for the encounter, otherwise it’s just an appropriate squad of their gang members (most likely riding infernal war machines).

DANGEROUS DEVILS

Go to Part 7H-D: Advanced Encounter Options

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DESIGNED ENCOUNTER TABLE

ALLIP’S SECRET: An allip (TOF, p. 116) wanders Avernus. This particular allip was formed when the Bloody Cyst formed around Yael and Lulu. Its whispers of madness ability reveals fractured images from the Second Visit to Idyllglen (see Part 6D-B). This allip (or others formed in the same instant) might have other secrets which belonged to Yael or Lulu.

CADAVER COLLECTOR: A cadaver collector (TOF, p. 122) has been collecting demonic corpses, which are pinioned to its back.

ORTHON HUNTER: An orthon (TOF, p. 169) has been sent to kill one or more of the PCs. (Who sent it and why, exactly, they want the PCs dead will depend on exactly what sort of mischief they’ve been getting up to in your campaign.) This particular orthon is quite sporting, and will start by openly approaching the PCs and explaining that, with its deepest apologies, it will begin hunting them thirty hours from now. They should make whatever final arrangements they need to, because then they will surely be dead. “Good luck! I look forward to a good, fair challenge!”

If the PCs attempt to immediately attack the orthon, he will consider this a breach of good sportsmanship. If he can escape, he will contact two additional orthons to form a triumvirate who will ruthlessly hunt the PCs.

ESCORT TO DIS: A corruption devil (EGD, p. 175) named Drograxol is being carried across Avernus on a bower by a dozen corrupted followers (EGD, p. 176). They are accompanied by an Enforcer of Dis (BOF, p. 154) who serves as Drograxol’s body guard.

Drograxol is an ambassador from Dis who is now returning to the Second Layer of Hell. (He’s heading for Tiamat’s Lair in Hex C1 and the Gate Tower of Dis that lies within it.) If he is successfully engaged in repartee, he may bemoan the hardship of his work in recent centuries. Relations between Dispater and Zariel have been… difficulty since the Siege of Dis during the Reckoning.

LEMURE HARVEST: A malebranch (SSA, p. 27) is often dispatched to collect wayward souls. This one, named Kaziron, has gathered a half dozen lemures (MM, p. 76) who are leashed to him with hooked chains. He is hoping to gather more before returning to the Purple City (Hex F2), and would be glad to hear of any recent lemure sightings. (He’d also be interested in any reports of nupperibo.)

SIN BEARER: The soul of a man or woman (commoner or cult fanatic; MM, p. 345) walks the Avernian wastelands with heavy tablets of lead strapped to their back. The tablets are inscribed with all the sins they committed in their mortal life.

FEASTING SWARM: A feasting swarm (BOF, p. 74) has settled upon the bodies strewn across a recent battlefield, stripping flesh from devil and demon corpses alike. (You can roll on the Procedural Encounters table to determine the corpse types.)

FACES OF BELLANDI: High Watcher Naja Bellandi, who formed the Pact with Zariel which ultimately led to Elturel’s fall, was damned to Hell. She wanders the Avernian wastelands as a faces of the great (BOF, p. 94), with the important distinction that rather than being made up of the faces of many different mortals, Bellandi’s bloated form carries many different versions of her own face — all of which mutter and murmur, constantly debating each other over whether she was right to do what she did; what she could have done different; how unfair it was that she was betrayed before she could make it right; and so forth.

If the PCs can interpret through her madness, they may be able to learn much of the history behind Elturel’s fall.

CHERNOBUE STALKER: A chernobue (BOF, p. 194) begins following the PCs at a distance. A chernobue has the appearance of a large, scuttling, filth-encrusted eye. It keeps far away from the PCs, often lurking right at the edge of the horizon or peering down at them from the top of some distant hill. It watches them without surcease.

ABYSSAL SKY HARRIERS: High above the PCs’ heads, an abyssal dragon (BOF, p. 204) flies by. It is beset by a dozen squads of the 3^rd Aerial Cohort of the 5^th Legion (which is based out of Zariel’s flying fortress). The dragon has been separated from the demonic frontlines and driven deep into Avernus, harried constantly by the aerial cohort who are hoping to take the beast down once and for all.

ESCAPEES FROM ELTUREL: This encounter indicates that the PCs have met someone else who has chosen to leave Elturel and seek their own fortune in Hell. You can roll on the table below to determine what Elturian faction they belong to:

Go to Part 7H-C: Procedural Encounters

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Random encounters can be used to achieve several different effects. In the case of the Avernian Hexcrawl, they’re designed to provide flexible content that will give a dynamic life to the Avernian wastelands, either as the PCs travel between keyed locations or while fleshing out those locations during play.

When using the Avernian Random Encounters, you may find it useful to check out:

• 5E Hexcrawl: Encounters, which breaks down the basic mechanics for random encounters. You can also use these tools to tweak the encounter check procedures described below.
• Hexcrawl Tool: Tracks, for details on running encounters from the Tracks results.
• Random GM Tip: Encounter Distance, which can be used to add encounter distances to your encounter generation procedures.
• Breathing Life Into the Wandering Monster, which looks at the actual practice of using procedural content generators at the gaming table.

The random encounters will use material from several sources, which are referenced using abbreviations:

• MM = Monster Manual
• TOF = Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
• GTM = Volo’s Guide to Monsters
• DIA = Descent Into Avernus
• EIA = Encounters in Avernus
• IE = Infernal Encounters
• EGD = Emirikol’s Guide to Devils
• SSA = Scientific Secrets of Avernus
• BOF = Book of Fiends 5E
• DDAL09-19 = Avernus Rising: Fang & Claw

ENCOUNTER CHECKS

Roll 2d10 and 1d12.

• A roll of 1 on 1d10 indicates an encounter. (Double 1’s indicate two simultaneous encounters.)
• A roll of doubles on d10’s (other than double 1’s) indicates that you should roll on the Designed Encounters table. Otherwise roll on the Procedural Encounters table for each one. (If you roll a designed encounter you’ve already used, roll a procedural encounter instead.)
• If the PCs are traveling on/along the Styx, there’s a 50% chance that any procedural should be rolled on the Styx Encounters table instead of the normal table.
• For each procedural encounter, check Track %, then Lair %.
• A roll of 1 on 1d12 indicates the PCs have encountered the keyed location in the hex. (If there are multiple keyed locations in the current hex, determine which one is encountered randomly.)

These results can be combined into a simultaneous encounter. (For example, rolling doubles on the d10’s and 1 on the d12 would indicate a scripted encounter taking place at the hex’s keyed location. Or you might roll a procedural tracks encounter plus a location encounter, indicating that the PCs have found tracks at they keyed location.)

DESIGN NOTES

I don’t typically use designed encounters (for reasons discussed here), unless there’s some specific design goal or advantage to be gained. In this case, as described above, I’m drawing encounter material from a wide variety of sources, and several of these include really good prepackaged encounters. It would be silly not to include this material, even though it adds a little extra complexity to our encounter checks.

Actually, I’m hoping that by using multiple dice and checking for doubles, that I have at least managed to streamline the number of dice rolls. (I was also quite pleased to easily generate simultaneous encounters with this system, which I felt were particularly important to include (a) given the fractious nature of Avernus and (b) to provide significantly more variety to the encounters.)

For procedural encounters, the tables have been designed to usually generate an encounter between 7^th Level Deadly (8,500 XP) and 12^th Level Hard (15,000 XP) for five PCs. Since multiple encounters can occur simultaneously, this creates a functional range from 8,500 XP to 30,000 XP (which is Deadly for 15^th level characters).

(Some encounters are an exception to this towards the lower end, where interesting or relevant fiends have been included even if would take a bajillion of them to hit the desired challenge range. They’ll either be scenic in nature or provide a little extra color when generated simultaneously with another encounter.)

This distribution is generally achieved on some form of bell curve, so the extremes will be relatively unusual. The net effect, however, is that Avernus will be very dangerous when the PCs first arrive and they will never be able to feel completely safe in Hell. This is deliberate because, well… It’s Hell. But it should also be mitigated to some degree because not every encounter should be thirsting for the PCs’ blood (which you can simulate using the Avernian Reactions table, or improvise according to your own predilections).

It is also possible to generate a very rare dangerous devil. These fiends are individually Deadly encounters for Level 12 to Level 18 characters (22,500 XP to 47,500 XP). They are obviously incredibly dangerous, particularly if they get combined with another encounter. Things to consider include:

• Assuming either indifference or a non-hostile intent on the part of these devils (e.g., the PCs see them flying far overhead or they offer the PCs a standing offer for their souls).
• Choosing to ignore the dangerous devil encounters entirely (or selectively ignoring them as appropriate).
• Increasing the Tracks % for these encounters (possibly to 100%) so that the PCs become aware of the danger without being immediately confronted by it.

Or just roll with it and let the dice fall where they may.

Go to Part 7H-B: Designed Encounters

Fantasy is, of course, the realm of the fantastic. We infuse fantastical elements into our campaign settings in many different ways – characters, spells, artifacts, strange creatures, and so forth. Oddly, however, I find that these fantastical elements often play out across mundane landscapes: They are the hills, fields, and forests of our own world.

What if, as we step into our fantasy worlds, we give ourselves permission to break these naturalistic conventions and created truly wondrous environments?

(New Zealand doesn’t count.)

Let’s start by looking at mountains.

The scope of a fantastical landscape is, of course, only bound by the limits of our imagination, so this will in no way be (or attempt to be) an encyclopedic treatment of every awe-inspiring peak. Instead, let this handful serve as a spark for your own inspiration.

CRYOVOLCANOES

Cryovolcanoes exist in our universe, just not on Earth. In environments of extreme cold, frozen volatiles like water, ammonia, or methane take on properties similar to solid rock, magma, and lava. Eruptions spew cryolava into the air, creating flows of ice-volcanic melt. After the eruption, the cryolava slurry — now exposed to the frigid surface temperatures — rapidly cools and solidifies.

Given that the conditions required for a cryovolcano to exist are generally considered antithetical to life as we know it, how could an icy volcano exist?

Let me suggest a connection to the Plane of Ice deep within a mountain peak. As the paraelemental material slips through the crack between planes, it would create pressure within the mountain, eventually triggering destructive eruptions.

Such cryovolcanoes might even be deliberately created by winter gods, frost giants, or white dragons to transform a region into one more hospitable to their interests.

THE EVER-BURNING PEAK

The other end of the spectrum, fantasy fiction is often studded with volcanic realms where Evil Overlords make their homes. Often one or more of these volcanoes will be in a state of constant eruption for dramatic effect.

Such volcanoes actually are possible in our world, although their true properties tend to be overlooked. Take Kīlauea, for example, a volcano in the Hawaiian Islands that has been erupting frequently for hundreds of years, including, notably, a single eruption that lasted from 1983 until 2018. It has featured long-term lava lakes, rivers of fire, and beaches of black sand.

However, while Kīlauea, like other volcanoes with long-term eruptions, can be incredibly destructive, it isn’t perpetually generating the cataclysmic imagery that we often associate with volcanic eruptions. (The long-term eruption, by its very nature, is relieving geologic pressure more slowly over a longer period of time, rather than dramatically and all at once.)

But if we did imagine a volcano that was in a perpetual state of cataclysmic eruption? The Heart of Evil. The forge of a dwarven god. An ancient, broken portal leading to the Elemental Plane of Fire.

(All of the above?)

The interesting thing to note here is not necessarily the volcano itself (although it’s undoubtedly very cool). Rather it’s the vast desert of ash which will inevitably rise up around the volcano.

Even a short eruption can create shocking amounts of ash, creating black dunes miles away from the volcano. Now imagine that same process occurring endlessly — day after day, week after week, year after year. Taken to extremes, we could imagine an Ebon Desert that would rival the Sahara, slowly creeping further and further out into the surrounding lands; swallowing entire civilizations over the course of centuries.

QUARTZ PEAK

Glittering in starlight and perhaps blinding in daylight, these peaks formed entirely from titanic quartz crystals — clear or purple or white or pink — are the gemstones of the gods.

• Alchemists believed that quartz crystals had healing properties and would use them in medicinal elixirs. Quartz spas on the mountain might have (or be believed to have) healing properties.
• The Egyptians believed quartz could prevent aging. Perhaps those who live near the quartz peak enjoy long life. (Legends might even claim that elves are actually the descendants of humans who lived within the mountain for many years. Elves, of course, likely find such tales offensive… unless it’s true and they protect the ancient, sealed dungeons of the mountain as an ancestral shrine.)
• Pre-colonial American cultures believed that quartz could balance the emotions. If the shape of the mountains is sufficiently changed by the miners seeking to extract the veins of rose quartz, what effect might it have on the local populace?
• In Ancient Japan, quartz was used for fortunetelling. On certain nights of the year (or more rarely upon the occasion of the celestial conjunction), could vast visions be glimpsed dancing within the mountain, providing hints at what the future will bring?
• Quartz was believed to be the imperial gemstone, which is why, when the mountain fell from the sky, the Divine Palace of the Emperor was carved from its peak.

Or maybe it just looks really, really awesome.

CLOUD GIANT DOCK

Atop this mountain the cloud giants built a dock for their floating citadels. Over time some of these citadels became permanently tethered; eventually dedicated platforms were added to the growing cluster, kind of like the artificial islands that are slowly expanding Tokyo.

The result is a mountain which appears to have a vast disc atop it, creating the impression of an unbalanced hour glass. (Or, if you prefer, perhaps the cloud giant structures are more of a mushroom-like tumor bulging out from the mountain’s peak.)

This aerial plateau could be an active community for the cloud giants. But perhaps these events happened centuries or even aeons ago, leaving only stone husks forming a strange dungeon in the sky.

RAINBOW MOUNTAINS

For a change of a pace, here’s a type of terrain which does exist on Earth: Rainbow mountains, which can be notably be found in the Vinicunca of Peru, the Zhangye National Geopark in China, and to perhaps less dramatic effect in other locations around the globe.

Rainbow mountains are the result of striated mineral bands, often resulting from layers of sandstone being deposited with different mineral content. Their colors in reality tend to be less vivid than you will often see in color-corrected photographs (including the one above), but they are nonetheless quite beautiful. (And there’s no reason your fantasy mountains can’t be as vibrant as you want them to be.)

As I brainstormed for this article, I had the thought that rainbow mountains could be a really cool idea, and only discovered that they actually existed (more or less) when I started googling them. There are undoubtedly people reading this who are thinking, “Well, duh. Of course rainbow mountains exist.” I include them here as a good reminder that our own world is vast and contains more vistas than we’ll ever see.

TITAN BURIAL MOUNDS

Giants are large. But in the elder days there were unimaginable colossi who strode across the world; their footsteps, it is said, were the size of kingdoms. They buried their dead in cairns the size of entire mountains. They stand out partly because they are often built far from any mountain range, towering peaks where none seem to belong; but mostly because they are clearly artificial in construction. You can see the individual, hewn stones that are the size of small towns stacked one atop the next.

Not all of the titan graves are simple mounds. In some cases, perhaps towards the end of their strange civilization, they built in more elaborate shapes — as if carving art to be seen from the stars above. An intermediary period saw the construction of a number of crescent-shaped mounds.

It’s a common bit of legend that some of the titans were buried alive within their mounds, and when they struggle against their bonds or stir in their sleep, they cause earthquakes.

Titans also apparently held the distinctive, pale blue of icebloom blossoms as their color mourning and would plant vast fields of them atop their cairns. In many cases, these blossoms — well-adapted to the thin, icy air — still cover the upper reaches of these “mountains.”

DREAM PEAKS

Mountains are the greatest of barriers, which also makes them powerful liminal spaces. Dream peaks exist in both this world and the world of the Dreaming.

This can take several forms (e.g., mountains that you climb up in one world and then descend in another; alps where strange visions appear in mist-drenched clefts; and so forth), but perhaps the most dramatic are those mountains which clearly shimmer with unreality from a distance: During the day they are semi-translucent, like the ghosts of mountains haunting the edge of the world. At night, dream peaks shift fully into our world… sometimes carrying strange things with them.

Today we can watch tournaments staged by skilled stuntmen, but the heart of the sport is missing, the intense competition for personal glory: They can never recapture the real enthusiasm of the medieval original, the excitement of spectacle in a world where colour and pageantry were a rarity, the genuine danger of the fighting. The joust and its ideals belong to the glories of the past, to the pages of medieval manuscripts, and above all to the imagination, which alone can recreate these extraordinary festivals.

– Richard Barber, Tournaments

To understand the tournament, you must first understand the medieval world which gave it birth: It was a place of brown, gray, and limited colors. It was a life of eternal toil and struggle. Music beyond folk performance was a rare and precious entertainment. Rich colors and large musical performances were luxuries enjoyed by the elite few.

So it is of little surprise that tournaments – and the festivals which accompanied them – were the most popular of affairs: Events which were anticipated by every level of society, and which drew their audiences from miles away. In contrast to the reality around them, tournaments presented a self-contained world of excitement: A dangerous and skillful sport. Bright colors. Pomp and pageantry.

But tournaments were more than mere crowd-pleasers: They were central events in the lives of the aristocracy. The ideals of the tournament were the ideals of chivalry, and the skills of the tournament were the same skills demanded of the knighthood which stood at the center of the feudal order. Tournaments were political and social events of great importance – and, at times, their stakes were literally matters of life and death.

Considering that tournaments now stand in the public consciousness as one of the most vivid images of medieval life – immortalized in tales from King Arthur to Ivanhoe to A Knight’s Tale – it should come as no surprise that they can play a role in your D&D campaigns. As backdrops for adventure – or as an adventure in themselves – you can bring all the excitement of the tournament to your gaming table.

HISTORY OF THE TOURNAMENT

A number semi-legendary accounts exist of the first tournament: Some say that it was held in the fabled Coliseum before the Emperors of Rome. German chroniclers claimed that it was Henry the Fowler, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 918 to 936 AD, who was the first sponsor of the tournament. Still another tale leads us to King Arthur’s court. Perhaps the most believable account ascribes the first tournament to Geoffroi de Purelli (who did, in fact, author the earliest surviving set of tournament guidelines).

Most of these accounts are the result of medieval scholars attempting to fill in a history they did not know. The truth, however, is that pointing to the “first tournament” probably has more to do with drawing a line than finding an innovator.

In short, the tournament evolved out of a variety of primitive arms-training exercises and exhibitions. Perhaps the most important line that can be drawn between the older forms and what would later become known as a tournament was the development of the couched lance as a weapon of war: Mounted knights charging down upon their foes with this braced weapon could wreak havoc previously unimaginable to the medieval mind… but only if they could execute and recover from charges as a coordinated group. As a result, the couched lance led to the rise of new mounted formation tactics. These tactics, in turn, led to the need for group training. Group training led to group practices. And these practices would eventually become the tournament as we recognize it today.

The oldest occurrence of the word “tournament”, however, was not applied to the formal affair of jousting we associate with the term today. Instead, it was applied to the melee: A rough and tumble affair, scarcely removed from actual combat except that its goal was to capture instead of kill. (Captured prisoners would typically be subject to ransom, just as they would be during times of war.) Later, “safe areas” would be introduced as a place for recuperation and socialization during the competition.

In this form, as scarcely more than unregulated brawls, the tournament was often banned by church and king alike – in no small part due to the tendency for any tournament to result in injury and death. Despite these perpetual secular and religious bans, the tournaments continued to be extremely popular, and knights would often travel to other kingdoms in order to escape the bans and compete.

This explosive popularity can be explained, in part, by the symbiotic relationship which arose between the tournaments and the emerging genre of courtly romance fiction. Courtly romance fiction idealized the chivalric virtues, particularly as they were demonstrated at tournaments. As the romances met with success, the popularity of the tournaments grew. And the popularity of the tournaments, in turn, caused the popularity of the romances to grow.

The romances also resulted in the first “superstars” of the tournament world. Tourneyers such as William Marshal (a knight of low birth whose prowess at tournament led him to become Henry III’s Protector of England) were made famous by the tales of their deeds in tournament. At the same time, tourneys became a means by which an unlanded knight could gain wealth without the stigma of trade.

This combination of wealth and prestige soon led to tournaments being given their first degree of respectability: In 1194, England’s Richard I issued a decree which specified five authorized tournament sites in England. The decree also required knights to seek charters in order to start an compete in a tourney. In short, the decree (a) formalized tournaments, (b) imposed a set of reasonable regulations on procedures, and (c) earned the king a new source of income on the fees charged for the charters.

Although not imitated in form (which, coincidentally, meant that England’s tourneys assumed an independent existence from those on the continent at the same time that England’s kings were earning a special renown for their willingness to compete in tourney), the substance of the decree was quickly adopted elsewhere: The continent soon gained a similar measure of respectability and control as a result of the example set by England, and the expectations of the growing romantic and chivalric traditions.

This respectability and regulation, in turn, led to an abandonment of the bans which had dogged the tournament’s history to this point: Most kings had already embraced the sport, while the Church (somewhat pacified by the reduction in fatalities and maimings) knew better than to fight its popularity. By the end of the 13^th century, the tournament was a fully integrated part of European life – and its practitioners were not only famous, but powerful. Indeed, when Richard I’s heir – King John – died, he left a minor as king… and William Marshal as regent.

Over the next three centuries, the tournament enjoyed the height of its popularity and success. Its popularity drew larger and larger crowds, and what had once been an informal brawl grew into a formalized and regulated sport – the pastime of nobles and the entertainment of the masses.

Eventually, however, its own success signaled the tournament’s demise. The need to entertain spectators led to greater and greater attendant pageantry, elaborate settings, and heavily developed themes. In time, the tournament was reduced to little more than a staged event or equestrian ballet.

Already in decline, the tournament was finally finished off as the changing nature of warfare rendered it completely obsolete.

HOLDING A TOURNAMENT

Historically, tournaments were held either by nobles or (more rarely) by the governments of the free cities. This was a matter of simple practicality: These were the only people who could afford the great costs associated with the staging of a tournament. In a fantasy setting, of course, these limitations do not apply: Imagine the tournament which could be staged by a dragon with his horde. Or a celestial might sponsor a competition to find a true hero. A band of famous adventurers might establish a tournament to mark their retirement, funded by years of treasure hunting.

Tournaments were usually held during the afternoon, with the morning spent on ceremony on preparation. Exceptions, of course, were known: Nocturnal jousts, example, were magical affairs of torchlight and shadow. And most tournaments ran more than one day.

The size of a tournament could vary greatly, and the largest were surprisingly massive affairs. When the Black Prince celebrated the birth of his eldest child, for example, the record shows that 154 lords, 706 knights, and more than 18,000 horses participated in the accompanying tournament.

The arrangements for some of the larger tournaments could be a matter of years: Invitations were, literally, sent across the continent. Lists needed to be constructed. Proclamations containing the tournament’s rules needed to be issued and posted. Travel arrangements and lodgings needed to be arranged.

As Celebration: In many ways, a tournament was nothing more than a very large party. And, like a party, it was used as a means of celebration. Tournaments were frequently held to celebrate births, betrothals, marriages, funerals, birthdays, coronations, holidays, victories in war, executions, knightings, and any other occasion meriting note. Tournaments were also frequently held as a way of welcoming important guests. In particular, royal entries (when a king entered a town in his domain) were frequently marked with a tournament. In some cases, the tournament became a celebration of itself. For example, a tounament was often held in honor of the “first joust” of a nobleman’s son.

As Challenge: Tournaments, both formal and informal, naturally lent themselves as a means of challenge. Often these challenges were friendly affairs (although played up with mock drama), simply providing an excuse for the tournament to take place in the first place. In other cases, however, a challenge could be of deadly import. Tournaments were used to judge feuds. “Jousts of War”, using unbated weapons, were sometimes held between hostile countries. Indeed, even during certain sieges, the historical record shows that knights would ride out of the besieged castle, engage in jousts with the attacking forces, and then be allowed to return to the castle.

As Sport: Whether as general competition or martial practice, the tournament was – above all – a form of sport: With spectators, scoring, and prizes. Tournaments associated with festivals were almost always of this type.

Whatever the primary reason for holding a tournament may have been, there were also ancillary benefits to be gained: Nobles who sponsored tournaments gained favor with the crowd, and cities reaped the profits which those crowds brought in attendant trade.

TOURNAMENT EVENTS

Today the terms “tournament” and “joust” are used almost interchangeably, but the reality is that a tournament was actually made up of a wide variety of martial events. In fact, as noted above, the earliest tournaments were held before the sport of jousting was invented.

Melee: The melee was a mass combat. Knights either fought individually or were grouped into two or more teams, depending on the form of the tournament. (Whether or not forming alliances as part of an individual melee was acceptable also depended on the tournament’s form.) In some cases, knights fought with partners. The goal of the melee was to capture other knights, who would be ransomed.

In its earliest form, the melee was essentially a war game. It was fought with a variety of weapons, over a field that could extend for several miles. The boundaries of the field were seldom marked, instead being defined vaguely, usually by a reference to two or more towns – for example, “the tourney to be held between the towns of Teugan and Seinoe”. The only formal limits were the fenced-in areas which served as refuges in which knights could rest or rearm in safety.

In time, the damage and injury wrought by these early melees (crops trampled, roads torn up, knights accidentally killed, etc.), combined with the growing desire to have the proceedings more easily observed by a gathered crowd of spectators, began to curtail the expanse of the event: The field became of a more limited size, whose boundaries were usually marked clearly be a fence. This, in turn, led to a reduction in the number of participating knights, and this usually led to a further refinement in which only a single type of weapon would be used.

In later years, as the size of the field and the number of participants continued to shrink, the melee would evolve into individual competitions such as the duel and jousting.

Jousting: Jousting is the classical tournament event, and eventually became the centerpiece (and sole event) of most tournaments. In its most basic and earliest form, the joust simply involved two mounted knights with couched lances: The knights would charge towards each other in an attempt to knock their opponent off their horse. Each charge was known as a “pass”.

In this early form of the joust, the goal remained the capture of the opposing knight: A dismounted knight would typically draw his sword, and would seek to similarly dismount his opponent. The competition did not end until one of the knights had either yielded or been rendered unconscious.

Over time, refinements were added: The idea of capturing an opponent was quickly abandoned, and the goal became the dismounting itself. Typically a set number of passes would be run, and points scored for various accomplishments (see sidebar, below). This allowed the introduction of the tilt – a wooden bar which ran the length of the field and provided a guide for more successful passes. Eventually counter-barriers were added to either side of the tilt, which helped to prevent horses from veering away from the tilt.

Archery: Archery competitions were typically run by elimination. In the early rounds, the competitors would fire from a set distance, and the least accurate archers would be eliminated from the next round. In the later rounds, as the field narrowed, the distance would be increased. Typically, when the field had been reduced to two or three archers, the competition essentially became a duel, with the distances from the target slowly increasing, and the archers forced to match the accuracy of the other or face elimination.

Duel: Unlike the fencing duels into which it would evolve, tournament dueling was conducted in full armor with combat weaponry (although the swords were sometimes wooden). In some cases the goal was literal subdual – with one knight battering the other to unconsciousness or to yield. More typically, however, the duel was fought to a certain number of “hits”.

Endurance Test: A variety of endurance tests (swimming, climbing, running, etc.) were also common at tournaments before the joust became preeminent. These tests were always run as individual events.

Ponte: In the event of ponte the participants were armed with club and shield, and formed into companies. This was a city-based sport, not a knightly one, and the companies were frequently based on the various districts of the city holding the event. A general combat would then be held, with various means of elimination for the participants. Eventually, two additional forms also evolved: In the mazzascudo the club and shield evolved into a single kite-shaped, pointed shield (also known as a mazzascudo) which was used to both thrust and parry. The battaglia de’sassi added the lanciatori, who threw stones.