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Description
Mordred is the first of King Arthur's recurring characters to appear in our historical primary sources. He makes his debut as "Medraut" in the Annales Cambriae, a 10th century chronicle of Welsh history which states that Arthur and Merdraut fell at the Battle of Camlann in 537 CE. And… that's it, pretty much word for word. It doesn't explain their relationship, whether or not they're on the same side of battle, or technically even if they're fatally wounded. We don't really start to get any backstory for this character until Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae, which seems to be the basis of all future tellings. Geoffrey portrays Mordred as the son of King Lot, and nephew of King Arthur. In this telling, Arthur placed Mordred in charge of his throne while he was away campaigning against Geoffrey's Roman Emperor OC, Lucius Tiberius. Unfortunately for Arthur, Mordred is a dick, usurping his throne and shagging his wife. This total violation of the bro code cannot be tolerated, of course, so Arthur rides back to Britain to spank his nephew. Arthur cuts Mordred down at the Battle of Camlann (which Geoffrey sets in 542), but is himself mortally wounded, afterwards carried away to Avalon by Morgan le Fay.

Speaking of which, where does she come in? Most modern media depicts Mordred as the illegitimate son of Arthur and Morgan, so how did we go from Geoffrey's pretty straightforward telling to that? It turns out, like everything in Arthurian studies, it's complicated, contradictory, and makes me want to strangle a giraffe. Geoffrey claims that Arthur had a sister, Anna, who married King Lot and bore him the brothers Mordred and Gawain (yes that Gawain). Medieval writers can't seem to settle on one name for this chick, though, and one of the more popular ones is "Morgause", which is sometimes combined with "Anna" to form "Morganna", and you can start to see where the confusion arises. Morgause is actually depicted as Morgan's sister, unaware of Arthur's existence. In Robert de Boron's poem Merlin, it is elaborated that Arthur fell in love with Lot's Wife. Much like his dirtbag father, Arthur pulls the wizard out of his back pocket and polymorphs himself to look exactly like Lot in order to get a night in bed with his half-sister. Gross. Thomas Malory, writing in the 15th century, flips the script and instead has Morgause get all hot and bothered for this 15 year old kid who showed up and managed to pull the sword from the stone. Also gross.

As far as I can tell, the conflation of Morgause with Morgan into one character is an entirely modern invention, as even Malory, our latest primary source, treats them as separate characters. In fact, the earliest examples of this phenomenon I could find are all from the 20th century (though feel free to prove me wrong). Either way, the family dynamic pretty much fucked Mordred's life six ways from Sunday. King Lot initially raised him as his own, but was cut down by Pellinore for supporting the rebellion against Arthur's early reign. This created a nasty blood feud between Pellinore and Gawain, all the while Mordred was kinda left on the sidelines, the responsibility as head of household being thrust onto him. Mordred eventually came into Arthur's court when he was 15, and Arthur was completely oblivious that this kid was actually his own son. Mordred worked behind the scenes with his mother and/or his aunt, playing the Knights of the Round Table against one another until Arthur's kingdom crumbled under its own weight. Combine this with the natural famines and plagues mentioned in the Annales Cambriae (which I can only assume are an attempt at referencing the 536 volcanic winter and the 542 Plague of Justinian), and the stage was set for an all or nothing battle to the death. We already know how that turned out, though.

Design notes… uuuuuuuUUUUUUGGGHHH *slams. head. into. desk* Why did I envision this punk as an emo little twerp? I made things so damn difficult on myself. My scanner does not get along well with large swaths of the color black. Racist bastard. I wanted to combine the whole black knight aesthetic he's often given in historical images with the raven schick of the Morrígan (whom I've decided to conflate with Morgan le Fay for Drake Hero, more on that when I post Morgan's sheet). I wrangled it in eventually, but man I had to digitally edit this so much. The base is primarily a combination of N.C Wyeth's illustrations for the 1922 edition of "The Boys' King Arthur", a 1902 illustration by Henry Justice Ford, "Sir Mordred the Traitor", drawn by Howard Pyle in 1910, and the costume from a 1895 stage play performed at Lyceum Theatre in London. His helmet is my own design, pretty much just combining a Roman helmet with a raven-esque porcelain mask. Clarent was also of my own design, inspired by raven iconography found in various Celtic and Nordic archaeological contexts, and combining them with a Roman spatha. I very much wanted it to be a dark reflection of Excalibur, and go whole hog on the whole "evil bad guy" aesthetic. I want Drake Hero's Mordred to be an edgelord who drips with sass and takes five hours to decide his outfit every morning.

Description
Mordred is the first of King Arthur's recurring characters to appear in our historical primary sources. He makes his debut as "Medraut" in the Annales Cambriae, a 10th century chronicle of Welsh history which states that Arthur and Merdraut fell at the Battle of Camlann in 537 CE. And… that's it, pretty much word for word. It doesn't explain their relationship, whether or not they're on the same side of battle, or technically even if they're fatally wounded. We don't really start to get any backstory for this character until Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae, which seems to be the basis of all future tellings. Geoffrey portrays Mordred as the son of King Lot, and nephew of King Arthur. In this telling, Arthur placed Mordred in charge of his throne while he was away campaigning against Geoffrey's Roman Emperor OC, Lucius Tiberius. Unfortunately for Arthur, Mordred is a dick, usurping his throne and shagging his wife. This total violation of the bro code cannot be tolerated, of course, so Arthur rides back to Britain to spank his nephew. Arthur cuts Mordred down at the Battle of Camlann (which Geoffrey sets in 542), but is himself mortally wounded, afterwards carried away to Avalon by Morgan le Fay.

Speaking of which, where does she come in? Most modern media depicts Mordred as the illegitimate son of Arthur and Morgan, so how did we go from Geoffrey's pretty straightforward telling to that? It turns out, like everything in Arthurian studies, it's complicated, contradictory, and makes me want to strangle a giraffe. Geoffrey claims that Arthur had a sister, Anna, who married King Lot and bore him the brothers Mordred and Gawain (yes that Gawain). Medieval writers can't seem to settle on one name for this chick, though, and one of the more popular ones is "Morgause", which is sometimes combined with "Anna" to form "Morganna", and you can start to see where the confusion arises. Morgause is actually depicted as Morgan's sister, unaware of Arthur's existence. In Robert de Boron's poem Merlin, it is elaborated that Arthur fell in love with Lot's Wife. Much like his dirtbag father, Arthur pulls the wizard out of his back pocket and polymorphs himself to look exactly like Lot in order to get a night in bed with his half-sister. Gross. Thomas Malory, writing in the 15th century, flips the script and instead has Morgause get all hot and bothered for this 15 year old kid who showed up and managed to pull the sword from the stone. Also gross.

As far as I can tell, the conflation of Morgause with Morgan into one character is an entirely modern invention, as even Malory, our latest primary source, treats them as separate characters. In fact, the earliest examples of this phenomenon I could find are all from the 20th century (though feel free to prove me wrong). Either way, the family dynamic pretty much fucked Mordred's life six ways from Sunday. King Lot initially raised him as his own, but was cut down by Pellinore for supporting the rebellion against Arthur's early reign. This created a nasty blood feud between Pellinore and Gawain, all the while Mordred was kinda left on the sidelines, the responsibility as head of household being thrust onto him. Mordred eventually came into Arthur's court when he was 15, and Arthur was completely oblivious that this kid was actually his own son. Mordred worked behind the scenes with his mother and/or his aunt, playing the Knights of the Round Table against one another until Arthur's kingdom crumbled under its own weight. Combine this with the natural famines and plagues mentioned in the Annales Cambriae (which I can only assume are an attempt at referencing the 536 volcanic winter and the 542 Plague of Justinian), and the stage was set for an all or nothing battle to the death. We already know how that turned out, though.

Design notes… uuuuuuuUUUUUUGGGHHH *slams. head. into. desk* Why did I envision this punk as an emo little twerp? I made things so damn difficult on myself. My scanner does not get along well with large swaths of the color black. Racist bastard. I wanted to combine the whole black knight aesthetic he's often given in historical images with the raven schick of the Morrígan (whom I've decided to conflate with Morgan le Fay for Drake Hero, more on that when I post Morgan's sheet). I wrangled it in eventually, but man I had to digitally edit this so much. The base is primarily a combination of N.C Wyeth's illustrations for the 1922 edition of "The Boys' King Arthur", a 1902 illustration by Henry Justice Ford, "Sir Mordred the Traitor", drawn by Howard Pyle in 1910, and the costume from a 1895 stage play performed at Lyceum Theatre in London. His helmet is my own design, pretty much just combining a Roman helmet with a raven-esque porcelain mask. Clarent was also of my own design, inspired by raven iconography found in various Celtic and Nordic archaeological contexts, and combining them with a Roman spatha. I very much wanted it to be a dark reflection of Excalibur, and go whole hog on the whole "evil bad guy" aesthetic. I want Drake Hero's Mordred to be an edgelord who drips with sass and takes five hours to decide his outfit every morning.