A tournament for a princess

[Corvo]

The Darkening of Mirkwood Campaign, 2947

The King's Men (my all-Barding, knightly fellowship) just returned to Dale from the Anduin's vales. They are thanes, got lands and houses to manage. Even a castle.
But they are worried. The Queen's accidental death* early in '46 cast a long shadow on the King, and on them. They fear the enemy is conspiring against the King.
Obviously, they are right. It was the Gibbet King that had the royal boat capsize. The target was the king, but that day he wasn't present.
During '47 princess Una of Dorwinion is going to visit Dale (as for DoM). An important visit to the young kingdom, desperate to escape his isolation. The King is going to impress his visitors with a Tourney, a practice of the old kingdoms.
Now, what can the King's Men do at a tournament? A tournament where their King is going to fall in love with a dangerous foreigner?

I'm going to use the feast from "the Crossing of the Celduin", with archery, melee contest, etc. but I need some idea for intrigue, social encounters, etc.
Princess Una is as good as she is fair, but the fellowship EXPECT her to be a danger for the kingdom (they already said they fear some dark lady worming her way in the king's heart). I'll let them being suspicious
I don't need a nefarious plan from the Enemy (I got a lot already), but some human, mundane plot.

Ideas? Suggestions? Can someone help me?

*in my campaign Bard married back in '38, and got two daughters.

[Elmoth]

IDEA 1:
A fire in the city. Causes can be a distraction to raid something, like the local goldsmith's hall, or a fortuitous accident. In any case a very dangerous event in a city with wood and thatch roofs.


IDEA 2:
A bad knight's work. This is an scenario from Ars Magica (Ordo nobilis). 2 members of the king's extended family have a fallout. One is handsome and witty while the other is stalwart and dour, but a great fighter. Thegoood fighter recently did something wrong, like a major social botch that almost sent the dwarven embassy* to draw weapons. Tension was defused but he was noticed. Only his membership in the royal family prevented the guy from being sent to the dungeons. At one of the feasts, witty cousin makes a cutting remark at his dour cousin and everybody laughs. he is clearly not a rising star, while his cousin is getting a fair share of attention from the officials of the realm. Later, when people are somewhat drunk and the witty cousin is having a fuield day, one of the friends of the dour cousin remarks that he has a sharp tongue, but probably that is because he has to make it up from his lack of combat skill. Taking up the challenge, the witty cousin announces that he will enter the tournament to be held later that week. General cheer.

Now, the fiend of the dour cousin 8with or without the dour cousin's knowledge) contracts a bunch of foreign participants in the melee (say, a bunch of Laketown fighters) and pays them handsomely to kill the witty dude. If no one impedes it, they will use the chaos of the melee to drop their stunted weapons and draw real ones. They will then isolate the witty cousin and pummel him to death. Death by broken bones and the like is the likely result, and this can happen even with stunted weapons, so it is unlikely that the death will be determined to have been a murder. The characters might learn of this plot from a number of ways, but seeing the friend of the dour cousin and the mercenaries exchange words and money might be a way.

Build from there.

*yeah, dwarven. this way we avoid centring everything on the Dorwinions

[Elmoth]

Another.

The characters get in a quarrel with a bunch of young drunkards in the market. A noble lady rides by and defuses tension, paying any destoryed property from his own purse. She is one of the ladies in waiting of the Dorwinion princess

Later they see the witty cousin and the lady in conversation. She seems desperate for his attention, while she is clearly refusing her. He then rides off. She will run in tears up the stairs of the wall and throw herself into certain death into the Celduin if nobody stops her. A good occasion to earn some grudge against the witty dude, and maybe get a character to develop a potential emotional relationship with am lady.

[Rich H]

Pages 32 thru' 43 of this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/795 ... 20Dale.pdf ... is strewn with ideas to use.

[Otaku-sempai]

Feasts and grand balls in the evenings are great opportunities for intrigues, plots and schemes.

[Dunheved]

I just bet that the fair Una has at least one brother (could be younger) who is keen to impress/uphold the honour & status of Dorwinion Chivalry. That sort of lad is notorious for challenging too many opposition nobles - You know the sort, they will have a classic Errol Flynn RobinHood style beard and they will thrash their serf farmers and act all Norman Overlord to the good yeomen of a parish: - not one of your band of course!

Such well-meaning, naive, impetuous youths often get into serious bother with scoundrel knights. The older sister might do anything to prevent her brother from being slapped around and even fall in with the wrong faction at court... this could allow the King's Men to come up against the princess; discover the real situation; and sort it all out. Eventually letting them realise that the lovely Una is a bit of all right and that they have done the right thing for Dale as well as helping out a damsel in distress. (Aren't all damsels in distress?)

In the bigger scheme of things there can be either a grand alliance of nobility (Dale & Dorwinion) or, played another way, a long standing feud. Stars and Shadows?

[Corvo]

Thank you for the good ideas!

@Elmoth: reading your plots I realized I need to flesh out some "knights" of the younger generation. My Heroes are among the younger ones that fought at the Battle of the Five Armies. t's the "middle" generation.
Many of the older ones are hoary boars, who chafe under the rule of a king.
Now I need to create the youngbloods, the more civilized ones that didn't really knew the dark days of the Dragon King.
In other words, I'm looking for some generational clash

@RichH: argh, I forgot to check the Guide to Dale! Too much real life is detrimental to gaming, sometimes The rules for dancing, gossiping etc at the banquet are really great

@Otaku-Sempai: and now I got rules for dancing! (in the Guide to Dale)

@Dunheved: a younger, troublesome, well-meaning brother? Interesting problem for fair Una. And thinking about it, it's all too possible for the Dorwinion to be more "civilized" than the North (as France for King Arthur's Britain), so that the young noble is more versed in courtly matters like jousting (as opposed to bashing), dancing, poetry, etc... Maybe he can comes to think he's among hillybillies (sp?)