Hero Spotlight - special Valentine's Day edition: Meet Sir Tristan

Knights!

This week, love is in the air. Allow us to tell the tale of Sir Tristan, whose name is almost synonymous with romantic love - thanks to the chivalric romance "Tristan and Isolde" as first written by poets like Thomas of Britain and Béroul in the 12th century. Well, as it happens, he also appears in King Arthur: Knight's Tale as an undead knight.

Tristan was known as the troubadour knight of the Round Table, and he was always brave, but often sentimental and likely to fight for lost causes. His personal tragedy was losing the love of his life, Lady Isolde - twice! Once in Britannia and then in Avalon, even if it seemed for a while that they finally found peace when they both ended up on the magical island. However, Lady Isolde became the enchantress of the Lady of the Lake and her servitude changed her entirely, making her a recluse, while Tristan went on daring adventures on Avalon to gain back her attention, deeply pained by her coldness and refusal to even acknowledge him.

He mostly blames the Lady of the Lake for this sudden change in her beloved, sometimes even suspecting some even darker presence behind all this.

After a series of glorious and daring adventures, the heartbroken Tristan was part of the knightly band of the chosen few from Avalon who were sent back for the dying, maimed King Arthur and brought him to Britannia on a ship. Upon arrival, they faced an otherworldly, terrible storm that struck down on their vessel and wrecked the ship on the shores of Whispering Cove. Tristan was among the survivors and witnessed the enchantresses of the Lady take away the king to a sacred location to revive him – but whatever happened there was not the end, but the beginning of the troubles.

As the unnatural tempest raged on, something not entirely human returned to the wreckage on the shore. It was King Arthur himself (or at least something that Tristan took for Arthur) as darkness incarnated. They fought and the Knight of Midnight struck down Tristan, who came back as a Lost One, a knight who died on the island of Avalon and was cursed to live forever.

Any story featuring Tristan could (but doesn’t have to) foreshadow his eventual demise – after all, he is a visionary, a knight with a sense of foreboding and doom. The details of the catastrophe will always be unclear, but Tristan knows deep in his heart that he was destined to suffer continuously, and the day he lost Isolde again was only the beginning of something even more terrible to come.

If you want to read a more comprehensive short story about him, check out the Chronicles of Avalon ebook in our Supporter Pack DLC!