SHP Forums

"An Encyclopedia of Daventry" is a section of the King's Quest Companion only included in the first two editions of the book. It contains information about many of the lands and characters of the King's Quest world, some of the fairy tales that appear in the games as well as many additional stories. I was completely unaware of this section until Baggins (probably the foremost expert in KQ knowledge and trivia) started adding bits of it to the King's Quest Omnipedia. While some of these snippets are merely interesting expansions on the characters, creatures and lands in the games, some of them are very...well, interesting, for lack of a better word.

To sum my thoughts on them up in a single statement: there's artistic license, and then there's just brazenly adding various details for no real reason. I don't mean to bash these ideas, it's just that some of them are so outlandish that they're a bit hard to accept as "canon".


From the page on the snow leopard:

The leopard might be more than just a bodyguard. It seems that fairies must spend a day each week in the form of some animal. Genesta may become a female snow leopard and the regal beast Rosella saw in Genesta's Ivory Tower is her animal husband.

Er...okay...

And speaking of Genesta:

Genesta once took a young boy from his parents, a foolish king and queen. Genesta promised to return the boy someday, but said they would not see him again until he was all covered with fur. She called the boy Mannikan because of his small size. He grew up to go on many adventures, aided by the good fairy Genesta. Years, later when Mannikin returned from the North Pole, Genesta arrived in a chariot drawn by eagles, bearing with her Mannikin's parents. Mannikan was wearing a fur coat, thus Genesta's promise was fulfilled.

Wow...makes me wonder if Lolotte got the idea of stealing Edgar from Genesta (and how can a world that's flat [according to the rest of the KQC] have poles?)

From Edgar's page:

Nobody knew who his father was, but it was rumored it was anybody from a drugged slave to a malevolent sorcerer.

"Drugged slave"? That seems a bit dark for the KQ world.

From the pirates' page:

All the pirates but one are now dead, the victims of a great storm spell cast upon them by Prince Alexander some weeks after his return home. The lone survivor washed up on the coast of Llewdor babbling of shipmates being consumed by sharks and others swallowed by a great squid after being crushed in its tentacles. The unfortunate man also kept whimpering a word that sounded something like "Cthulhu," but his mind had been shattered by the experience and he only continued to chatter incoherently.

Is it just me, or does this story seem a bit...well, out of place?
"Well Mother and Father, I'd really love to spend more time with you after spending nearly 18 years as a slave to an evil wizard, but right now I've got to go sic an Elder God on some rude pirates who stole my things before they brought me here. Bye!"

On Sir Greywolf:

Sir Greywolf is a changeling and a werewolf and the consort of Queen Icebella.

What is it with the implied bestiality in this Encyclopedia!?

A bit of information from Cassima and Alexander's pages:

There was apparently communication between Alexander and Cassima between the time they met in Mordack's Island and Alexander seeing her in the magic mirror, but how, or where or when is unknown. Nothing is at it appears, and little is known. During these brief communications she was able to give further explanation as to how she lost her Locket, and she told him about Dink, and more about the Blue Beast.

At first, I thought someone had put this on the pages as a joke, since it seems to contradict the beginning of KQ6, where it's apparent that Alexander hasn't heard from Cassima since they first met, and explaining those little mysteries of KQ5 smelled vaguely fan-fictiony. However, I found out that this info was also from the EoD, which predates KQ6.

Speaking of KQ5, The townsfolk of KQ5 are all named. The shoemaker and his wife are Sonny and Mama Cincinatus, the tailor is Tailor Fey (wow...subtle) and the toymaker and his son are Gepeppo and Gepeppito. This last item seems especially odd. I get that the author was trying to allude to "Pinocchio" with those names (since Graham gives the toymaker a marionette) but both of the men have German (not Italian) accents. I wonder if this encyclopedia was written before the CD version of KQ5 came out.

On vampires:

Derek believes vampires may be descended from the lizardfolk and not supernatural at all, having powers similar to the bat and chameleon (other species that may have descended from the lizardfolk).

I probably shouldn't have looked up the lizardfolk's page after reading this, but I did...

The lizardfolk are [a] reptilian race that had owned the earth, and roamed the stars before the evolution of mammals that would become humanity. They crawled out of the swamps to raise gargantuan cities and ruled the stars for untold millions of years. Their race died out, disappearing into oblivion, victims of arcane sorceries from beyond the Multiverse itself. The insane and incomprehensible magics (the very sounds which cannot be conceived nor reproduced by humans) that destroyed the lizards may exist still.

...I got nothing.

According to An Encyclopedia of Daventry, the winged horse in KQ2 is indeed Pegasus, who was born from the blood of the gorgon Medusa after she was killed by Perseus. However, this raises the quandary of how Medusa is alive in KQ3. A look at her page in the Omni reveals that:

There are hints that this Medusa is the same one Perseus killed. How she came to be alive again is unknown.

No kidding.

There's also a story about a princess named Rosanella whose mother is named Balanice. It's a nice little story, but I can't help but wonder why it was included in the encyclopedia. The mother and daughter in the story have no connection to Rosella and Valanice at all other than their similar names.

Having never read the KQ novels I can't say what more to the KQ story line that they might have added, but it sounds like this guy has been engaging in his own little flights of fancy. Unless someone can point to proof in something official I'll dismiss it as nothing more than a fan's daydreams.

"Hi, Mrs. Williams? This is the writer of the KQ companion. I just wanted to run some ideas by you. ...First off - the snow leopard. It's boring. Can we just make it so Genesta's married to it? Also, I think Genesta should kidnap children. And vampires should come from lizards. ...Yes, I'm aware my phone doesn't work - that's why I'm calling you on a banana."

Seriously,though, the wiki page for the companion credits Roberta and all the Sierra employees for the help in writing it, but I think even they regarded it as amusing fan-fiction rather than anything official. As far as I'm concerned, nothing outside the original seven games is canon.

I do like how we're still finding crazy things like this after 16 years, however.

Datadog wrote:"Hi, Mrs. Williams? This is the writer of the KQ companion. I just wanted to run some ideas by you. ...First off - the snow leopard. It's boring. Can we just make it so Genesta's married to it? Also, I think Genesta should kidnap children. And vampires should come from lizards. ...Yes, I'm aware my phone doesn't work - that's why I'm calling you on a banana."

Banana phone!

(What, no shoe phone?)

Collector wrote:Having never read the KQ novels I can't say what more to the KQ story line that they might have added, but it sounds like this guy has been engaging in his own little flights of fancy. Unless someone can point to proof in something official I'll dismiss it as nothing more than a fan's daydreams.

I was actually so puzzled by those excerpts that I posted that I actually bought a copy of the second edition of the King's Quest Companion. I can now confirm that yes -- all of those excerpts are from the KQC, even the ones about Cthulu and the snow leopard. In fact, most (if not all) of them are copied verbatim from the KQC.

Now I'm wondering how much of this information actually came from Roberta and/or the KQ game designers and how much of it is just material that Peter Spear made up himself.

I realize this is a very 'old' topic. I did find the discussion rather amusing! Akril's comments especially.

As I'm sure Akril likely knows by now (as we have discussed this before in emails), there is a bit more of an explanation for quite a few of the above references, if you understand the context behind them.

Thus I think there should be a bit of clarification, for anyone else who comes to read this topic, that quite a bit of the stuff 'added' (if it can't be tracked down a pop culture reference) are actually mainly references classic fantasy literature, myth, or horror. Quite a bit originates from the Colored Fairy Books by Andrew Lang. They were a fairy tale series much like the Brother's Grimm fairy tale series written during the early 20th century. They also happen to be the series that Roberta Williams read as a child, and on several occasions said were the inspiration behind Wizard and the Princess, and much of the KQ series; inspiring many of the puzzles, characters, areas, and events seen in the games.

http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/Andrew ... airy_Books

The author of the Companion for example was using the "An Encyclopedia of Daventry" for explaining where Roberta got much of her influence, and showing the 'logic' behind some of the puzzles that happen in the game from the Fairy Books, and the original backstories which inspired those references. There is a method to the "golden bridle/viper/Pegasus" puzzle for example, but one would have to know Greek Mythology, and the book tries to explain that. So that section included quite a few short versions of the stories from various books, so that people who cared and wanted to know more would have better context of what inspired those stories. Kind of a non-fiction approach I suppose.

Still, no explanation why a machine would run on cheese, but I digress!

Still other parts went for in-universe fiction of as "Derek" speculates, etc, etc. But Derek's speculation is generally 'off' compared to other characters speculation in the same book, that tend to play things straight to the original literature sources. I.E. Dracula is undead, not a lizard creature taken from DND campaigns...

Some interesting things to note, Genesta, and Lolotte were both taken from the Green Fairy Books (although Roberta had a tendency to manipulate or change personalities of characters she 'borrowed', see Manannan). Some of the things attributed to Genesta such as the 'animal' shape changing bit, and perhaps the leopard as well originates from one of the stories in the Green book, about a Queen of the Fairies (which also contains the characters Balanice and Rosanella, which inspired the names of Valanice and Rosella). It's apparently a attribute of fairies found in French fairy stories.

That being said, yes there are some silly inventions and ideas made in the books, that are purely the author's concepts. Like his indirect references to Thor and the Hulk, or Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, the musical televangelists, and other pop culture puns. But those were included as attempts at humor I suppose (kinda of like the silly puns and pop-culture references that appear in the official Sierra hintbooks, if you take the time to read through them, LOL).

For added fun; Simpleton from The Golden Goose;

(and how can a world that's flat [according to the rest of the KQC] have poles?)

The context is more of giving a synopsis of the story from the "Other World" as in "earth" (which is taken from Andrew Lang's Green Fairy Book as mentioned) which was the original source of Genesta (and Roberta 'borrowed').

That being said, the King's Quest Companion in the KQ5 novelization states that Icebella lives in the 'polar regions'. Generally speaking the book actually tries to avoid confirming if the world is flat or round (allowing for mixed stories and rumors). The edges of the map are usually just marked 'unknown' (because no one knows if the world is flat or round). Other than then a few direct references to the 'edge of the world' which lies near the Green Isles in which the book is just acknowledging KQ6 material, I don't remember if it actually went into much detail or even specifically stated the world is 'flat'.

Also note that even in the KQ games, the games have mixed details that imply flat earth, and/or round world, and sometimes in the same game! KQ8 for example has examples that might imply a round world, and the earth's magnetic pole is mentioned, but the world map shows a 'flat earth' type image. Several accounts in KQ6 and the Guidebook suggest a flat earth, and realm of the dead lieing just beyond the 'edge of the world' (an artistic image shows a boat about to sail off the edge of the world). Yet once Alexander flies to the island and back, there is nothing but water inbetween, and the islands appear over the horizon, implying a round world.

http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/On_the ... h_or_round