Tuesday 9 March 2010

Pwyll and Rhiannon - Summary and idea

I read the story of Pwyll and Rhiannon and its not as simple as I originally thought. This is a summary of the story -


  • Originally Pwyll sees Rhiannon at "the Gorsedd or Arberth where a man cannot sit without either receiving wounds of blows or seeing a wonder."
  • It is at this place where he finds Rhiannon riding upon a white horse.
  • She is described as 'wearing a garment of shining gold' and in some adaptations it is said that she is followed by three magical birds. (I'll look these up)
  • Pwyll tries to follow Rhiannon but she runs away from him and no matter how fast he gives chase is unable to catch up.
  • This happens on several occasions and eventually Pwyll shouts out to her.
  • Rhiannon tells him that she is the daughter of 'Hefydd Hen' and is in fact in love with Pwyll but is being forced to marry 'Gwawl.'
  • Pwyll agrees to marry her and is to travel to her kingdom to marry in a years time.
  • Pwyll and Rhiannon have a feast but a stranger arrives and asks Pwyll for a favour.
  • Pwyll tells the stranger (in front of everyone) that he can have whatever he wants.
  • It turns out that the stranger is Gwawl and basically wanted Pwylls permission to sleep with her.. Silly Pwyll.
  • Rhiannon is not happy! but has a cunning plan to stop Gwawl. She tells Pwyll to come back in a years time and gives him a magical bag that doesn't fill up.
  • In a years time Pwyll manages to trick Gwawl and poor Gwawl ends up in the magical bag.
  • Pwyll and Rhiannon marry! woo


Ok so this story is a bit complicated and wasn't really the 'magical trials' I had in mind... Later in the story it also gets a little Adult orientated with Gwawl wanting to sleep with Rhiannon.

Fortunately I think we can adapt/simplify the story to suit our game =D


  1. In my opinion I think It would be good to base the game around Pwyll chasing Rhiannon. (as far as the story above is concerned, forget about anything else!) She could be an illusive figure who is always one step ahead of the player. It would obviously be a friendly/curious chase, you wouldn't want the player to feel like Pwyll is chasing her aggressively.

  2. The player could chase Rhiannon in to a magical forest where they have to solve puzzles/defeat creatures in order to catch up with Rhiannon.

  3. One of Rhiannons three magical birds could stay with Pwyll to help him with the puzzles. Using the bird as an ability could swap between the 2D/3D perspectives.

The Mabinogion has quite a diverse amount of creatures mentioned in it so creating enemy creatures and wildlife wont be a problem =) As soon as we settle on a story, we can start concepting environments, characters.etc..

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