Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th-century chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain gives some really great and gameable details about the ashes and resting place of wise King Belinus of Britain. But King Belinus never existed. In any RPG campaign with magic—World of Darkness, Achtung: Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, D&D, Monsterhearts, etc.—you can have an urn inspired by the ashes of King Belinus (or literally the ashes of King Belinus) be an important magic item. Digging into the fact that King Belinus isn’t real only makes things better, as it drives the party towards Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Prophecies of Merlin,” which get real weird real fast.
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Geoffrey of Monmouth was an English scholar and later bishop active from 1129 to 1151. His History of the Kings of Britain, written circa 1136, is an important literary work masquerading as a historical chronicle. Almost none of the kings of Britain Geoffrey wrote about actually existed. It’s unclear to me whether he was aware of that fact.
The chronicle’s greatest impact was in the genre of Arthurian romances. Most of The History of the Kings of Britain is a soap opera about armies, politics, invasions, and inevitable betrayals, and most of his Arthur stories stay in that genre. But he also includes blow-by-blow accounts of events like Arthur fighting giants, and these had a major impact on the developing field of Medieval romance.
But we’re not here to talk about Arthur! We’re here to talk about King Belinus, who—had he been real—would have ruled maybe somewhere around 400 B.C. (Geoffrey is real fuzzy with dates.) Like all ethnic Britons, Belinus was Trojan, descended from refugees after the Fall of Troy. Obviously, none of this is really true, and this’ll be the last time I say so.
After the old king passed, Belinus became King of Britain. His younger brother Brennius became his vassal and lord of the north of Britain, from the River Humber to tip of Scotland. All was well until wicked courtiers drove young Brennius to jealousy. Brennius allied himself with the King of Norway and raised a revolt against his brother the king. The revolt failed. Young Brennius escaped to France/Gaul, giving King Belinus the freedom to become wise and just. He even built two great stone roads that spanned Britain in a pattern like an upside-down cross, and extended sanctuary protections to the roads.
But though decades passed, the civil war wasn’t actually over. In France/Gaul, Brennius married the daughter of the Duke of the Allobroges (a tribe in southeast Gaul), then inherited the duchy. He took his big new army to Britain to make war on his brother the king. The mother of Belinus and Brennius, who hadn’t seen her runaway son in so long, rushed to greet him. She embraced him and convinced him not to hate his brother, the wise Belinus. Hadn’t Brennius actually profited by being absent? Aren’t these bare, ancient breasts the same breasts that suckled both these brothers? Brennius gave up his hate, and wise King Belinus forgave him.
A year later, King Belinus, with Duke Brennius by his side, invaded Gaul. They conquered it so well they crossed the alps and descended upon Rome. This was in the days of the Roman Republic. Julius Caesar was still 350 years away. By use of sneaky ambushes, they defeated the Roman armies and sacked the city. Brennius remained in Italy. Wise King Belinus returned to Britain, hauling all that sweet Roman loot back with him.
This is one place where there is an element of truth in Geoffrey of Monmouth. In 387 B.C., a force of Gauls led by a chieftain named Brennus (no ‘i’) sacked Rome. Rome wouldn’t be sacked again for 800 years. The attack by Brennus’ Gauls left a deep scar in the Roman historical memory, and a well-read man like Geoffrey would have known about it. This event is one of the reasons Belinus’ reign is sometimes dated to around 400 B.C. It’s unlikely the historical Brennus ever so much as set foot in Britain.
For the last little bit of Belinus’ story, I’ll quote an 1848 translation of Geoffrey:
“Belinus made upon a gate a wonderful structure in Trinovantum [Trojan London] upon the bank of the Thames, which the citizens call after his name Billingsgate to this day. Over it he built a prodigiously large tower, and under it a haven or quay for ships. He was a strict observer of justice, and re-established his father’s laws everywhere throughout the kingdom. In his days there was so great an abundance of riches among the people that no age before or after is said to have shown the like. At last, when he had finished his days, his body was burned, and the ashes put up in a golden urn, which they placed at Trinovantum, with wonderful art, on top of the tower abovementioned.”
In an RPG campaign, that urn is your treasure. If you’re running a fantasy game, place a golden urn full of the ashes of a beloved king at the very top of an awesome tower for your players to steal. Heck, if you’re pillaging Geoffrey anyway, steal a detail from the life of King Vortimer (circa 450 A.D.) who wanted to be buried atop a bronze pyramid in the port of Totnes, through which the Saxons usually invaded, so that when they sailed in they’d see the pyramid of the man who’d defeated them so many times, get scared, and sail away. That is to say, make your campaign’s awesome tower bronze, and give it the power to cast fear spells on unprepared enemies of the man whose ashes are in the urn at the top. So of course the party has to heist those ashes from the top of the tower.
Even in a non-fantasy campaign, though, as long as there’s some sort of magic you can get real fun with the urn as treasure. See, the urn contains the ashes of a beloved king who definitely never existed. Things always just worked out for Belinus. He always won his battles. His mother’s breast-baring rhetoric actually worked. Wealth just kind of accumulated. Given that this effect didn’t persist after his death, the mojo must have been personal. Maybe some of it’s still in his ashes. Any and all factions in your campaign might want that urn, and might want to keep other factions from getting it. But of course these aren’t King Belinus’ ashes, because he didn’t exist—so what the heck are they, and why do they work?
Looking into Belinus necessarily drives you to The History of the Kings of Britain. The chronicle also talks about some other ashes. Maybe that story is where the ashes are actually from. Geoffrey is excited to recount the Prophecies of Merlin: a set of apocalyptic heraldic metaphors about the life and aftermath of King Arthur. This segment talks about ashes:
“The mountain ox shall take the head of a wolf, and whiten his teeth in the Severn River. … The ox shall be incensed, and having called the wolf, shall become a horned bull against them. In the exercise of his cruelty he shall devour their flesh and bones, but shall be burned upon the top of Urien. The ashes of his funeral-pile shall be turned into swans, that shall swim on dry ground as on a river. They shall devour fishes in fishes and swallow up men in men. But when old age shall come upon them, they shall become the sea-wolves, and practice their frauds in the deep. They shall drown ships and collect no small quantity of silver.”
There are parallels between the life of the ox and the life of Belinus. Maybe in your campaign the twist is that Belinus (or his analogue) isn’t real, but the ox is. Once the players learn this, they also learn that the ashes can do more than just help things work out. They can tun into swans and sea monsters that swallow men and sink ships.
At that point, you might as well start throwing other cool imagery from the Prophecies of Merlin at your players to give them trouble:
“A hoary old man sitting upon a snow-white horse shall turn the course of the river Periron, and shall measure out a mill upon it with a white rod.”
“The ram of Venus, having golden horns and a silver beard, shall breathe such a cloud out of his nostrils as shall darken the whole surface of the island.”
“The River Usk shall burn for seven months. Fishes shall die with the heat thereof, and of them shall be engendered serpents.”
“He that shall drink of the third spring shall be surprised with sudden death, neither shall his body be capable of burial. … Whatever bulk shall be laid upon it shall receive the form of another body. For earth shall be turned into stones, stones into water, wood into ashes, ashes into water, if cast over it.”
“Winchester shall be rebuilt by a hedgehog, laden with apples, to the smell whereof the birds of several woods shall flock together. He shall add to it a vast palace, and wall it round with six hundred towers. … The hedgehog shall hide his apples within Winchester, and shall make underground passages.”
“All these things shall three generations see, till the buried kings shall be exposed to public view in London.”
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