Log in

View Full Version : Galvoie Info



dwarinpt
12-19-2016, 05:09 PM
I'm having a hard time finding information online about Galvoie, mentioned in Savage Mountains as a lost kingdom. That book references Parzival. I don't know if that's the German version or if there's a translation somewhere. I can always make up stuff myself, and I intend to, but I'd like to know more about this lost kingdom. The Great Pendragon Campaign also mentions Galvoie and La Roche Sanguine but gives no additional information about it. Any ideas?

Morien
12-19-2016, 08:06 PM
Quick Google search turned up this:
http://www.archive.org/stream/parzivalaknight02westgoog/parzivalaknight02westgoog_djvu.txt

In our GPC campaign, I dropped the Kingdom of the Circlet of Gold in the Arden Forest, where Galvoie is supposed to be, so I pretty much ignored the existence of Galvoie. My players never knew any different, to be honest.

dwarinpt
12-19-2016, 08:34 PM
Thanks for the link. I'll take a look. I think I got that one too, though I found little about Galvoie just from a cursory glance.

I using Galvoie as a playground for a smallish military campaign. Savage Mountains states that last time Galvoie was heard of, the king had died heirless and there was a civil war. I'm still in 522, and one of the PK acquired a small fief near the Black Mountains / Forest of Dean so I'm trying to setup a mini-story arc. In my campaign, Galvoie is not yet engulfed by Enchanted Forests so going in an out, although difficult, is doable. Later, the Forest will claim Galvoie perhaps leaving the PKs yearning to go back in, lamenting what they left behind. This will also allow me to go nuts with the Battle System. Since all the Battle results are predetermined, Galvoie will allow me free reign to make up everything up.

It will also set up things for the Cambrian War / Bulith campaign as experienced with the Cambrian kingdoms is a decisive factor in earning the command of an army.

jmberry
12-20-2016, 12:58 AM
Galvoie's a weird country to pin down. My own brief googling implies that it first appeared in Chretien's Conte du Graal, specifically in the ending portion (where Chretien abandons the Perceval story entirely to focus on Gawain). It's generally accepted that Chretien meant to write "Galloway," and most versions of the tale I've found use the real place instead of Chretien's name, which is probably why you haven't found much on Galvoie.

Short version of Chretien's tale - Gawain ventures to the Roche Sanguin (the Castle of Marvels in Parzifal) on the advice of the Haughty Lady of Logres, which guards "the Gates of Galvoie," and meets his long-lost sister, Clarissant, as well as his long-lost mother, Morchades (Morgause), and long-lost grandmother, Yguerne (Ygraine). He braves the Perilous Bed, and then crosses the river to fight Guiromelant of Oroquelenes (Gramoflanz in Parzifal), who used to be an unwanted paramour of the Haughty Lady and was now an unwanted paramour of Clarissant (ironically, he hates Gawain - and is unaware he's talking to Gawain!). Guriomelant discovers Gawain's identity (due to asking Gawain his name), they agree to fight in sight of Arthur and his court, and ... it ends, since Chretien never finished the story. The First Continuation has Arthur make peace between everyone, Guiromelant happily marry Clarissant, and gain Nottingham in the process, but it's unlikely this was direction Chretien was planning to go.

Galvoie reappers in the part of the Vulgate called the Prose Lancelot. Bors, while looking for Lancelot (who was in a faerie enchantment in Perdue Forest) comes to Galvoie Castle. He agrees to aid the Lady of Galvoie against Mariales, who had captured a castle his father built for her father. Bors defeated Mariales in the court of Mariales's and the Lady's mutual liege, King Pellam, and restored to the Lady her father's castle. Sommer's appendix reveals she later married a lower-class knight named Gaidon.

Galvoie is not mentioned in Malory, except for a possible implication that the Perilous Bed was made by Merlin (although the Vulgate had shifted it in location from Galvoie to Corbenic and made it explicitly part of the Grail Quest, and Malory followed suit), and the fact that the Haughty Lady acted as a sort of proto-Lynette/Maledisant.

Pendragon seems to follow the Chretien version over the Vulgate. Galvoie, in the 4th Edition rulebook, is described as a Cymric Pagan kingdom, is close to Oroquelenes (Wroxeter), and is ruled by three queens named Yguerne, Morchades, and Clarissant from the Roche Sanguin, although, bafflingly, after doing that it makes no mention whatsoever of Guiromelant (Orofoise, the county Oroquelenes is in, is ruled by some random Welsh guy named Gwarthen), and the fact that Morchades and especially Yguerne are simply more archaic versions of Arthur's sister and mother really sticks out.

Greg Stafford
12-24-2016, 03:54 AM
Basically I originally set Galvoi aside to be the setting for a future adventure.
I am also thinking, perhaps even correctly (!), that there is a dragon adventure set there.

Morien
12-24-2016, 08:16 AM
I am also thinking, perhaps even correctly (!), that there is a dragon adventure set there.

If you are thinking of the Dolorous Wyrm, Greg, that is in the neighboring Ergyng (The Savage Mountains -book).

dwarinpt
12-24-2016, 02:51 PM
Just found the reference to Parsival interesting. I was hoping someone, or Greg, could provide more info, even if sketchy as a way to weave my own plot. There's so little information in Savage Mountains I have carte blanche to do whatever I want.

I'm considering having Glavoie somewhat isolated but not yet lost to Enchantment. As the campaign progresses, and the Forest of Dean becomes more enchanted, Glavoie will be lost to the outside world.

Greg Stafford
12-26-2016, 12:45 AM
That's about as far as I have gotten as well.
Maybe the PKs will go there in my new campaign and I'll have something to write about!