Since I have begun work on this new approach to interactive storytelling based on encounters, it behooves me to start writing design diaries. I certain do have a great many ideas bouncing around that need to be sorted out.
The first issue that I’ll mention here concerns the basic question of realism. I want this storyworld to be very much about the real world in which Arthur actually lived. None of that swords and sorcery crap that the kiddies love so much. Instead, I want to show people just how cruel that world was, and how desperate was the war that Arthur fought. I will compromise reality for dramatic effect. For example, I’ll use much smaller populations and a more restricted range than the real Arthur covered. I’m going to concentrate on the defense of Dumnonia, with Bath (Aquae Sulis) at the northern end of the front and the Channel on the southern end. The real Arthur is though to have ranged as far north as Scotland. That’s too much area to cover.
Similarly, I will keep the populations small, and the military forces similarly small. Big battles will involve hundreds of men, not thousands, and most engagements will involve less than a hundred men. I want Arthur to be able to deal with his people as individuals.
I’ll keep the population of Cadbury (Camelot) down to at most 500. At 18 acres, it probably could have held several thousand people, but the primitive transport capabilities of the time, and the miserable state of the roads, would have made feeding and watering that many people impossible.
Another problem concerns the underlying language to use. The actual language in use was the parent of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, and so it shouldn’t be too difficult to extrapolate backwards to get an idea of the shape of the language. Yet Latin had been the language of governance until at least 450 CE, and the upper classes would certainly have spoken a vulgarized Latin. Still, I think that, once the last of the Roman legions left, the language of the common people would have quickly reasserted itself as the standard language.
I certainly don’t want to get into the idiotic spelling that Welsh uses. The names that most people know are the Frenchified versions from Mallory. For example, the original name Gwenhwyfar became Guenevere in Mallory. I believe it was originally pronounced “Goo in hoo var”. That’s asking too much of the audience, I suppose.
On the other hand, I want to use Celtic names for the characters who don’t have Frenchified names. I have good lists of Latinized names from that period, but I would prefer the Briton names. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good source for Briton names from that period. I have found lists of Cornish, Breton, and Welsh names, but they show very little overlap, so it’s impossible to extrapolate original Briton names from these lists.
I suppose that I’ll just have to use a grab bag of Welsh, Breton, and Cornish names. One thing’s for sure: I’ll Englishify the Welsh spellings. Seriously, consider some of these pronunciations:
Culhwch: kil’ ooch
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Ysbaddaden Pencawr: us ba tha’ den pen ka’ oor
Twrch trwyth: toorch’ troo’ eth