In lieu of any progress to show on the Acronym Pending story, have a stupid little world-building thing.
As reminder: the TDG world is set after an aversion of the apocalypse (called the Antiocalypse) caused the world of reality and belief to class together. Gods, monsters, fairies, all that jazz, without the Urban Fantasy magical veil keeping everything hidden. The released stories, the prologues describing how this all happened, are hereorhereif you prefer Wattpad.
During the decade or so after the Antiocalypse, shit got kinda scary. There were stories about all sorts of things prowling the world, inciting a panic that outshone the Satanic Panic because… well… it was real. Real demons and shit. The governments and militaries could no longer be relied on to assuage these fears. They couldn’t do shit to the monsters out there, a story for another time. And so, in 1972, people welcomed King Arthur with welcome arms.
In Somerset, England, there was a dragon. It was a small one, but still it was gobbling up livestock and poisoning creeks and whatnot. After several failed attempts by police to kill it, an unlikely savior came around. A blonde, handsome man with a full suit of ornate armor carrying a whole ass real sword came into town on a horse and said he would kill it. And he did! After this, he let the people know that he was King Arthur Pendragon. He was mortally wounded and taken to the Island of Avalon to heal and wait for the day he would take back the throne of England. Why was he showing up now? Well, after so long he had to be taught the history and parlance of the modern era by Morgan Le Fay. Arthur swept around southern England before coming to the capital. With a following of tens of thousands of English people, the monarchy begrudgingly took their leave and instated King Arthur to the throne. Even before he sat on it there were skeptics everywhere, especially among the aristocracy and Parliament. But the people of England wouldn’t have him relegated to a meaningless role in the nation. Arthur would not be a mascot. Even across the pond he was beloved by the masses; a sign of old heroes coming to save the day once more.
Despite being gone for over 1000 years, Arthur had a pretty good hang of modern English government and the global situation. Such highlights include the President of the United States meeting with King Arthur, King Arthur brokering a deal to dismantle all nuclear weapons (because of the general public association with the Tsar Bomba and the Antiocalypse tragedy), King Arthur officially supporting the Chinese Communist Government, and the EU making a round table, the largest ever, for their meetings. King Arthur’s most outspoken policy was that, to save England from the goblins and dragons lurking in the darkness, they needed to return to the old ways. Essentially he appealed to the fetishization of the past and how it used to be “in his time”. A big part of this was, apparently, English supremacy. Historians were quick to point out that Arthur was supposed to have been king before England existed, but that didn’t stop anyone. People loved it. And so that remained the bulk of his policy making and governance. Until 1978, when he was shot outside of his Royal home.
This came as a pretty big shock, as few believed that the mighty Arthur Pendragon would go down to a mere gun wielded by a random nobody. Well, an autopsy showed he was not king Arthur. Dental records matched him to some rando from Liverpool. His sword and armor were real, but he was a reporter who disappeared off the face of the Earth two years ago and seemingly decided to fake being King Arthur for power and fame. There was a bit of a tumult as the old monarchy resumed on its merry way. Namely, would the real King Arthur come back? How would we know if he was real? What would happen if he was? Thankfully, there weren’t any conspiracy theories about him being the real King Arthur, because one of the foremost conclusions about him was that the real deal would never die from a common mortal weapon. The real King Arthur would perish in a climactic battle with an adversary. Parliament set up the Arthurian Verification Protocol in case any more Arthurs showed up. And they did. Between 1980 and 2000 there were six false king Arthurs. One of which actually made it all the way to the final stage of the Protocol, until his family in Edinburgh snitched on him. After that, impersonating King Arthur was made a crime punishable by death. After that, only two sincere imposters came out, one of which was extradited to the United States and the latter given the lethal injection. When looking back on it, the most genuine of the fake Arthurs was the first. He had the benefit of there not being a precedent of impersonations, but he also did actually slay a dragon. He got a majority of his Arthurian legend right and had real armor and whatnot. Most of his follow-ups never went as hard as he did. For now England, and Wales, who’ve mostly been left out of the whole incident, have to wonder why the real Arthur hasn’t come back from Avalon.
anyway just a reminder for the myth lovers out there
king arthur was welsh. merlin was welsh. camelot was in wales. the lady and the lake she pops out of; welsh. excalibur; magic inanimate welshobject. etc.
on the way to see family, i drive past a lake that in which is welsh legend, is the last resting place of excalibur.
i’m just saying in my experience a lot of these legends had been so anglo-fied in the past and it’s like, all this cool shit is celtic welsh legend.
Arthur’s wife was called Gwenhwyfarfirst.
Like the kraken I emerge, summoned by the English theft of Arthur
Arthur is a Welsh name. It means ‘bear’. He’s likely derived from a Gaulish bear god
In the form of King Arthur, he is an anti-Saxon mythological WELSH figure, representing the native Brythonic people of Britain against the Anglo-Saxon invaders, dating from the 500s AD
The version appropriated by the English in the 1100s is the shitty boring sanitised version - they did it because they were trying to compete with the romance tradition on the continent at the time but didn’t have anything of their own to romanticise
Merlin is called Myrddin
Percival is Peredur
Kay is Cei, and also was subject to enormous character assassination in the English version - in the Welsh version he’s much closer to Arthur’s right hand man
Guinevere is Gwenhwyfar
There is no Lancelot, no Galahad, no tedious affair story
There is no Camelot. Arthur’s seat was Caerllion - modern Caerleon, putting him into both the region of the Silures (one of the most fearsome and warlike of the British tribes, modern South East Wales) and the old Roman fortress, which would have been an impossibly huge Palace for a warlord at the time.
They all have super powers and get up to wacky hijinks involving hair care, giants, strange giant wildlife, spectral revolving/glass fortresses in the Celtic sea, and a really fucking weird chess match. Also a cloak made out of beards.
What the fuck is the round table
Anyway it’s particularly irritating because traditional Welsh culture and beliefs have been so thoroughly stripped away and destroyed by England over the centuries, and Arthurian legend is one of the few surviving fragments we have left to preserve. And he’s specifically an anti-English figure. So the ubiquity of the boring and appropriative English Arthur across the whole fucking world is… Well, it’s not great.
This is so interesting! Does anyone know a good source/reading material where one could get more of the original Welsh versions of the stories?
The Mabinogion, translated by Sioned Davies is your best bet! It’s got a bunch of big-ass Welsh myths in, but most relevantly it includes Culhwch ac Olwen, which is a full-on Arthurian text (plus a couple of interesting ones).
There’s a whole bunch more that’s survived in fragments, but they’re all in Old Welsh - fully readable if you speak Welsh, but obviously not much use if you don’t (I don’t know if you do or not but from context I’m guessing not lol).
Trioedd Ynys Prydain (literally “the Triads of the Island of Britain”, though in English they’re usually called “the Welsh Triads”) are a huge collection of lists of three things from Welsh lore, including a lot of Arthurian lore. They’re not stories, but they contain fascinating allusions to stories, to whole strains of the Arthurian tradition, that we may or may not have elsewhere.
Love these two characters so much, they own my heart entirely. Have been re watching both series from the start & noticed so many similarities I never realised before upto both their endings, I adore them so much and whilst the shows may be over in my imagination I can believe both characters will rise again ❤
I have a deep love for Native American, Aztec, Mayan, and Incan Cultures. I also have a deep love for European History (my favorites being Pre-Roman Brittania, Ancient Greece, and Age of Exploration). I also love the fantasy genre and I am a huge fan of RPG (in case you couldn’t tell). Thus I love the games I am about to point out.
Dragons Conquer America and Chronica: Age of Exploration.
Both are historical fantasy games set in/around the age of exploration.
Both are epic.
DCA, by Burning Games, is a great game with a unique system that involves Dragon Riders, Werejaguars, Headhunting Tribal Necromancers, Conquistadors, Inquisitors, Missionaries, Courtesans, Aristocrats, and more as Player Options. There are spells that require human sacrifice, spells that enable you to become the vessel for the horsemen of the apocalypse, spells that enable you to summon a giant serpent, seduction magic, magic tattoos, and more. Also, Ave Maria and Pater Noster are spells for Christian Spellcasters, while the Norse are under the rule of Giants, King Arthur is still alive and leads an army of Fairies, Eastern Europe is ruled by Vampires, and the Muslims have allied with Djinn. It is all really cool.
Chronica is a Pathfinder setting set in a historical fantasy version of our world during the age of exploration. There are Olmec Lizardmen, and Empire of Rakshasa, Atlantis, and The Library of Alexandria. You can be an Atlantean Elf, an Olmec Lizardmen, a Turkish Artillerymen, a Half-Rakshasa, and so much more. Also, Genghis Khan is back (he was frozen in stone all this time), and you should heed the rumors of the Bermuda Triangle. It is all really cool.
