What follows is the first booklet detailing the provinces of the Thonian Empire, a realm in the world of Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor. This is my take on the Province known as the Eastern Marshes. While much of it is based on published information from the DA modules and the FFC as well as some ZGG material, the final interpretation is my own. I make no claim for it being any official interpretation. Thanks to Rafael, LoZompatore, Aldarron, James Mishler, Agathokles, RobJN, Cthulhdrew, Greg Svenson and many unnamed members of the Mystara Community and the people of the Comeback Inn Forum for research and ideas that was used in this PDF. This booklet details the Eastern Marshes in the year 1030, the time of the ZGG Blackmoor product line, 5 years after the DA modules.

Introduction
South of the Kingdom of Blackmoor lies the largest empire known to man. It is sometimes referred to as the Republic of Thonia or the Great Kingdom and was founded over 1000 years ago by King Robert of Geneva. The Empire today stretches from the Jungle Realm of Tangor in the South to the Northern Marches in the North. Its current ruler is Emperor Iyx I. Uther’s Rebellion in 1015 NC meant a significant reduction in the size of the Empire, which now consists of ten major Province (The Rand, Bleakwood, Bolgerie, Synobia, Salik, the Western Plains, the Eastern Marches, Mirakos, the Grey Woods and Cirkhosia) as well as the Imperial Province, which is home to Mohacs, the Capital. Each Province is ruled by an Imperial Governor and is made up of 2-3 Duchies. The Duchies are ruled by Dukes who in turn are served by Imperial Wardens (similar to Barons).

Southeast of Blackmoor lies the Thonian Rand. South of the Thonian Rand lies the province known as The Eastern Marshes.




-Havard

Good sauce, my friend. I'll post a link to this one on my blog as well.

...And pirate it for the second part of my Great Bay, hehe. :)

Seriously though, where do you want to take this? Do a gaz of the entire GK?
Run a game in the EM as well, like you did with the Vales?

Thanks!

As to games, I think I will continue using the Vales as the setting for my PbP campaign. When the Vales Campaign is completed, I may produce a sourcebook for that region as well, but I prefer discovering those lands together with my players so that will have to wait.

As for Thonia, I already have enough material to produce a 20 page booklet on the empire. However, I would prefer to explore each province in detail before I compile a full sourcebook for the Empire as a whole. I expect new ideas will appear as I go through the provinces one by one and I'd rather not limit myself by an overarching book before having looked into the details of the land.

Remember that each province is the size as the entire Northern Marches! That is, the Empire is ten times the size not of Blackmoor, but of all of Arneson's map.

With the Eastern Marshes, I was lucky enough to have a lot of material to work from. Early on I had decided that this region would be based on Richard Snider's Campaign from the FFC. This provided me with names of most of the settlements and much more. The second idea was to make this the same region that the noble families from the Duchy of Ten originally controlled. This meant I could mine the DA modules for information about the Duchy of Ten for more details.

Finally, I decided to mine the entry on High Thonians from the ZGG. I decided that each example familly name from the entry would correspond to an actual noble family on Thonia. High Thonians are pretty much exclusively nobles or aristocracy, so it did not seem like a far stretch. Every single NPC name is either from that list, or a reference to some other little factoid. Yep, this is the ultimate geekery of Blackmoor Scholarship at work :)

Beyond this, there are several other references to the DA modules as well as ZGG books like the Wizards Cabal. I was hoping to tie in some things from the MMRPG and the DABPG, but this will be more apparent in future sourcebooks.

Future sourcebooks will probably include The Rand, which is the area between the Eastern Marshes and Blackmoor. I already have the map pretty much done for that one. Bleakwood, also in the northern part of the Empire is also high up on my to do list.



-Havard

Good plan. I am interested in what you will come up with, and, mainly, as you may already guess, into the sources you use. ;)
- In case you're interested, my primary source for the entire Great Bay area is, quite simply, P&P, and I arbitrarily use the info that I like best.

I think I will steal a few tidbits from your Eastern MArshes for Synobia, though not many. Our overall visions of the setting are indeed pretty different.
(Not that this would be a bad thing, though.)

I myself am right now - and you would likely LOL if you saw how I do it - putting together the details for Synobia,
Salik, Ravilla, Palmyra, and Bleakwood, which will be a part of Ravilla in my campaign.
That makes about the entirety of the north of the Great Kingdom for me; the South, I might leave for 2015.

For Synobia, and so on, Kalibruhn, Greyhawk, and Midkemia will be the main resources that I cling to.
And a bit of Thieves World, though only a little bit. Andrew Offutt's lost novel, Death Knight, actually.

Hi Havard,
you assumed that all the rulers of the Eastern Marches revolted and ended up in the Duchy of Ten.
I'd suggest thinking about one or two that stayed faithful to the Emperor and that now find themselves surrounded by newcomers (that in their eyes did nothing to earn their fiefs apart from being pawns of important and powerful families) but didn't get anything up to their expectation for their loyalty...
Just a passing thought...