Records: Cavalon and the Order of Britannia

## **The Foresight of the English Crown**

One way or another, the lands of Britannia would be united. Effectively, no matter how it was done, there would still be three major landmasses and associated cultures, one medium one with Wales, and one minor one with Cornwall. Then there were the Manx in the middle, subject to the will of the titans all around.

The central location became the key to the future. No matter how much London was a convenient center of England, even if it were to the south, it was on hand a security threat and a statement to have Scotland and Ireland be summoned to London when one wanted them to feel treated as equals.

As if nature were listening, the Isle of Man was there to provide neutral land. Anything but neutral, all things considered, and fought over constantly, if only for the symbolism (much less a bad-weather staging area). The decision had been made, early on, to create a meeting place for Scots, Irish and English (Welsh, Cornish and Manx).

While the Isle of Man itself had a fair castle, it also had a Manx identity and history that would color relations because of who had held it, for how long, and how it changed hands.

The Crown didn't need that, but they didn't mind the support of the Manx – and they still *needed* the central location. The decision was made to assume a barren, wind-swept island on the south end of the chain of the Isle of Man.

Renamed from the Scandinavian "Calf of Man" (had nothing to with anybody's calves), the island was renamed Cavalon, one interpretation of what an alternate timeline might've once called "Camelot" (or Avalon). At 620 acres, it was big enough to withstand a blockade or siege, and with a highpoint of 413 feet that still hadn't been named, it was both close enough and remote enough to be secure as a symbolic capital of Britannia.

### **Castle Cavalon is Completed**

The namesake of the CCC, and the interpreted name from history that both the CCC and the English crown was choosing to use from Arthurian legend, this team had been working here since the very beginning. Between the size, magic and resources of the team, this was a three-hundred year castle if measured by old means.

Like a protected city, a double wall ringed the edge of the entire island, just in from the cliffs or steep drops. The low point had a 5-ship stone pier, each slip designated for a key member of the islands. The pier itself was protected by its own tower complex, complete with cannons.

The walk down the pier was covered and made it to a second barbican gatehouse that gave entrance to the main island. The pier had stone trellis work that vine-covered and already appeared ancient.

Once through the main gate, the path to central keep was uncovered, but now lined with fully-grown apple trees, evoking legends of Avalon, itself a nod the possible origins of the name in Old Welsh, Old Cornish, or Old Breton. In one the basement levels under the main keep was the magical smithy. Excalibur (Reborn) wasn't forged here, but everything used to forge it was moved here – and the enchanted, *otherworldly* smithy could repair it or forge another.

### **Structures on the Island**

There was a central keep, which was representative of the neutral island itself. Surrounding that keep were five smaller, separate keeps, one for each of Britannia's components. England, Scotland and Ireland were equal in size. Wales and Cornwall were somewhat smaller and much smaller (in that order), but were closer to the core.

The paths to each castle led to each other as much as the central keep, and they were paved in stone and lined with fruit trees that were indicative of home.

The stone of the castles themselves was polished – and one leaned it, metallic. Far harder than quarried stone, this was an enchanted metallic ceramic that would stand up to cannonfire a thousand times greater than anything even England was producing – *and that was significant*.

There was one additional structure, on the southern high point of the island: a lighthouse. The lensing wasn't uniform, but rather was designed to highlight the navigation dangers on every pass.

### **The Order of Britannia**

The coat of arms visible of the doors and walls of the main island, or the central keep, was *not* the three lions of the House of Plantagenet. Surprisingly, it was instead three crowns – the classic armorial of Arthur.

Likewise, there is a *Guard of the Order* that is loyal to Britannia first, and the individual crowns second. It was built from scratch as an independent entity, and was staffed to nine heavy *Honor Guard* platoons. Each platoon was named after one of the nine sisters: Morgen, Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thiten and Thiton.

### **The Britannic Order of Merlin**

Just as the "Royal" portion was clarified regarding the "Royal Order of Merlin" between crowns (What "royal" is it?), the unroyal "Order of Merlin" had a base of operations in of the towers of the central keep and two sprawling floors of basement space. Not a "Royal" chapter, they were excluded from kingdom-specific sensitive operations, but were instead all-Britannia operators themselves as the Britannic Order of Merlin (though most of the time, they only needed to reveal as far as the "Order of Merlin").

Among the first to reveal the wards to a select few, the entire island was shielded by a dome of wards that would protect against fire long before it reached the castle walls. It protected against the force driving the undead as seen and studied during the London Apocalypse.

If nothing else, by magic alone, Cavalon was *secure*.