From: Peter Corless Subject: Glatisant Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 20:20:00 -0800 (PST) Glatisant The Questing Beast -- copyright (c) 1996, Peter Corless Much material (quotes and attributions) copyright various publications - - - - - - - - - - - Glatisant, The Questing Beast, "The Bizarre Beast" The Questing Beast is a fearsome creature, hunted throughout the realm by many of the best Knights of the Round Table. In particular, King Pellinore and Sir Palomides are known for dedicating much of their lives in pursuit of the beast, as was Palomides' father King Astlabor and, during the Grail Quest, the good knight Sir Galahad. The Questing Beast, also known as "Glatisant", was fearsome and wonderous to look at. It had the head of a serpent, the body of a leopard, and legs and hooves of a hart. From it's belly came the sound "like unto the questing of thirty couple hounds" (Malory Book I, Chapter 19). The only time the sounds of the hounds silenced was while the beast slaked its great thirst by drinking, usually great draughts from cool lakes or wells. If the beast bellowed, it's sound was so shocking that it caused the listeners to fall into an unconcious stupor, or killed them outright! King Arthur was overcome by such a wonder-struck sleep after first seeing the Questing Beast. When Pellinore came across the sleeping Arthur, he was afoot, after losing his horse in the pursuit. The Questing Beast often foils it's pursuers by frighting or killing the hunter's mounts. It frightened the fiercest warhorses, sending them into wild panic with it's howling alone, and snapped many horses' necks with it's serpentine maw before the rider could react. However, though often frightfully brutal to horses and hunters, the beast could be extremely charming to look at, and hardly ever disturbed those who merely observed it in the wild. The origin and nature of the Questing Beast is explained in the Vulgate. It is the progeny of a wicked princess -- the daughter of King Hipomenes -- and a devil or spirit, much like the father of Merlin. Those more sympathetic to non-Christian viewpoints may consider this "devil" a beguiling sylph or faerie spirit. King Hipomenes's daughter lusted after her own brother, but could never have his love. Secretly pining away from him, she was about to kill herself with grief beside a well, when the devil appeared. He offered to gain her brother's love for her if she slept with him as payment. She did so, but in her pleasure forgot completely about her brother. The devil asked her to cause the death of her brother. Gladly, she agreed. The princess called her brother into her chamber, then slapped him on his face. Crying out that she had been raped, her brother was siezed and imprisoned. Her father completely believed her. But at his sentencing, her brother proclaimed the fact that she was carrying a beast within her, and how it was not his. It would "come forth in the semblence of the most grotesque beast anyone ever saw. Because you're having me given to the dogs, that beast will have inside it dogs who will bark constantly in rememberance of and in reference to the dogs to which you're having me given." He then said it would cause much sorrow among men until a knight named Galahad joined the hunt. After making such an outrageous prophesy, he was immediately thrown to the dogs, who ate him up. Fate came to pass exactly as he said. Many of the princess' ladies died at the sight and sound of the monsterous birth. The sturdy midwife who was present took the beast and tossed it out the window. She immediately went to the king who, learning of the event, tortured his daughter until he obtained a confession from her, then put his daughter to a miserable death. King Pellinore was geased to chase after the Questing Beast, but we never discover the reason or origin of this. [Designer Note: I will do further research to see if this is true. If you know of pre-20th Century literary reference to Pellinore's relation to the Questing Beast, I would appreciate hearing from you. -- Peter Corless, pcorless@cisco.com, 12/3/96.] However, he is quite clear when he speaks to Arthur when they first meet (512 AD) he has already spent more than a year chasing it to learn the truth of it's origin. He also reveals it had been fortold that a man of his lineage would be the one fated to slay it, but he "must be the best knight to come from our kindred and the kingdom." (Lancelot-Vulgate, Volume 5: Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation, Chapter 1: 151.) Merlin tells Arthur little about the truth behind the Questing Beast, other than to say "it is one of the adventures of the Grail," and that "I can't tell you any more than this; a better man than I am will tell you... He is not yet conceived or born. And the knight you saw chasing the Beast will father him." After the death of King Pellinore, his long-time friend King Astlabor and his sons take up the quest for the beast. However, during one of these hunts, Astlabor lost eleven of his sons to the shriek of the beast. As Astlabor himself said, "It uttered a cry so agonized and frightened that there's no knight in the world who wouldn't have been terrified, had he heard it. What shall I tell you? The cry was so strange and eerie that not one of us could hold himself in the saddle, and we all fell unconcious to the ground." When he awoke, he found himself wounded severely by a lance stroke. What's more all of his sons had been struck dead by blows from the same lance. It was only by a divine miracle (later revealed to Astlabor when God struck him with lightning) that he survived. Astlabor was so wondered by the events he converted to Christianity. The sons of Astlabor who were spared were Palomides (who was specifically ill), plus Safer and Segwarides. We do not learn more of the beast, or the mysterious lance wounds until the Grail Quest. Ywaine le Blanchemains finds himself on the trail of Glatisant during the Grail Quest when he encounters a hermit, who recounted a strange tale indeed after hearing Ywaine pursued the beast: "One day it happened that we were beside a body of water, and we saw the beast totally surrounded, so that there was no way it could escape. "The oldest of my sons was holding a lance, standing nearer to the beast than his brothers, and the youngest of my sons called to him, 'Strike! strike! And we'll see what it carries in its body, from which these cries emerge.' "He heeded his brother and the others, who were saying the same thing, and he struck the beast through the left thigh, for he couldn't strike it anywhere else. When it felt itself stricken, it gave a frightful cry, after which there came out of the water a man blacker than pitch, with eyes red as live coals, who took the lance with which the beast had been stricken and struck the one of my sons who had struck it with such a great blow that he killed him. And the second, then the third, then the fourth, then the fifth. And then he went into the water, so that I never saw him again..." -- Lancelot-Vulgate, The Old French Arthurian Vulgate in Translation, Vol 5 The Post-Vulgate Quest for the Holy Grail, Chapter 85: 127 The hermit cried for rememberance of his sons, and was so distraught he refused to tell Ywaine about the location of the lake where the beast could be found. Ywaine himself was rather frighted by the tale of the beast and it's dark guardian, and was rather glad when he lost track of it the following day. Later during the Grail Quest, Percivale (the knight of Pellinore's lineage, as foretold above), Galahad (the knight foretold by King Hipomenes' son) and Palomides finally chased the Questing Beast into a lake. Greyhounds surrounded the lake on all sides. The beast, tired and thirsty, drank enormously. It had just recently devoured a squire's horse. Because of this, the sounds of baying hounds in it's belly were silent, allowing the pursuers to approach without their mounts being frighted. Not wasting the opportunity, Palomides rode into the water, and plunged his lance through the beast's flanks and out the other side. The beast screamed loudly, frightening all the horses (including Palomides'). The dying beast sank below the water, and flames shot out of the lake on all sides. Screams came from below the waters as if "all the devils of hell were there in the lake." Thereafter the lake would boil continously, as was known as the "Lake of the Beast." - - - - - - [sidebar] Not a Nice Beast at All! This version of the Questing Beast is as it was originally told in the Lancelot-Vulgate cycle in Old French, written c. 1220 AD. Most subsequent English-language versions of the story, from Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur" (c. 1485 AD) and especially T.H. White's 20th Century "Once and Future King" fail to explain the remarkable origin or nature of the Questing Beast, or it's significance. With the recent release of an English-language edition of these significant early works (just published in 1996 by Garland Publishing), much of the mystery surrounding the beast is clarified. Still, T.H. White does a magnificent and sympatheic job reinventing the beast's purpose, which was, as he interpreted it, it's love to be hunted for the sole sake of hunting. It even gets saddened and quite depressed after King Pellinore is murdered. Though this is quite revisionist from the original tale in French, many modern readers are more comfortable and familiar with this sympathetic, friendlier, and less-terrifying version of the beast. The Pendragon game statistics given to it below revise those given in Pendragon 4th Edition, page 325-326, to reflect the nature of the beast as recounted in the Old French Vulgate cycle. For those who wish to use the "T.H. White" version of the Questing Beast, please use the statistics published in Pendragon 4th Edition. [end sidebar] - - - - - - The Questing Beast SIZ 65 Move 15 Major Wound 30 DEX 45 Damage 15d6 Unconcious 24 STR 25 Heal Rate 6 Knockdown 65 CON 30 Hit Points 95 Armor 10 Avoidance 35, opposing any Hunting, Awareness, or even weapons skill used against it. See Hunting rules. However, the Questing Beast will usually slow down to allow hunters to feel as if they have been able to pursue it. Little do they realize they are often being led to their doom! Modifier to Valourous -20 (once struck), to Prudent -10 (causes Recklessness!) Glory: 15 to see it, 100 to get close enough to strike and survive, 500 to wound it, 2500 to kill it. Attacks: bite @ 25 Special: If wounded, scream requires a roll versus CON. Critical success = remain awake, but is stunned for 4d6 rounds Normal Success/Failure = suffer stupor/sleep/unconciousness for 1d20 hours Fumble = instant death Also, when it returns to "Lake of the Beast" to drink, it is guarded by it's Dark Guardian. The Dark Guardian SIZ 20 Move 12 Major Wound n/a DEX 45 Damage 7d6 Unconcious n/a STR 20 Heal Rate n/a Knockdown n/a CON n/a Hit Points n/a Armor n/a Attacks: any weapon 20 This terrible and supernatural guardian only appears at the Lake of the Beast, when the Questing Beast is wounded. As Glatisant lets out it's scream of pain, the Dark Guardian rises from beneath the Lake of the Beast, grabs the weapon which was used to cause wound, and uses it to kill the stunned attacker and all other accompanying hunters nearby. It may let stunned attackers who remain on the shore of the Lake of the Beast survive, to remember with horror what they observed, though it might also arbitrarily kill them or leave them terribly wounded. The only way to prevent the retribution of the Dark Guardian is to strike a blow which not only wounds but kills the Questing Beast in a single round, a near-impossible feat. One must first obtain a critical hit doing 75 or more points of damage (65 Hit Points + 10 Armor) in a single round while the beast must simultaneously fail to make a critical Avoidance of the blow with it's skill of 35! According to prophesy, this feat could only be achieved during the Grail Quest by the trio of Galahad, Percival, and Palomides.