The Comeback Inn is proud to present a new PDF book by Greg Svenson:
GS4 Noble House of Zvenzen

With aditional material by Dave Arneson written before his passing.

Edited by Havard



Let us know what you think!

Trouble Downloading?


-Havard

Just downloaded this. It should be a great read! P.S. You may want to edit the old GS3 Castle Newgate title in your original post.

Thank you very much for this great present!!!

Such a great resource! It explains so many things.

Some reallly cool stuff.

Somebody needs to do a bit more proofing though - there are a lot of typos. Orcs is spelled Ores about 1 time out of 3. :(

I'm a little fuzzy on what exactly Dave Arneson wrote. On p6 it says "A Poem by Dave Arneson", but there is no poem. Instead we get "an abstract of a poem by Dave Arneson"

Does that mean:
A) Dave wrote a poem, and someone (presumably Havard) summarized the story of the poem in prose.
or
B) Dave wrote the whole abstract as it we see it on pages 6-9, and there never was a poem?

I guess B, but in any case it'd be nice to have a bit more info about what it is and about when it was written and how it is that it is used "with permission of the author". There's some pretty interesting things in there and the whole thing reminds me a bit of the write up on Izmer Dave did.

The Great Svenny Poem - hearafter the GSP - is super interesting as an Arneson artifact on Blackmoor. While it surely could have used a few more passes through the rewrite stage, it isn't as simple as it appears.

Arneson is clearly mimicking the style of the medieval and classical semi and psuedo historical chronicle, and these are exactly the sort of stories historians and textual critics have pored through and parsed in efforts to find the "kernals of truth" behind the myth. There are hundreds of examples - Schliemann and the odyssey, Geofrey Ashe and Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, David Rohl and Manetho's Aigyptiaca, etc. etc.

So let's have a look at Arneson's story as if it were an ancient romance that contains much distorted echoes of "real" events, places and persons. We can attempt to strip it down to core "historical" elements - something like this:

- Svenny is ordered by Uther to go handle some business with orcs
- There is a fight involving the orcs, the elves, and the forces of Greyhawk
- Svenny is victorious - Greyhawk is angered.
- Svenny and his troops are at Bramwald. There they ready themselves for an extended campaign.
- From Bramwald, Svenny invades "the Orc Province"
- Svenny leads a series of victories in Orc territoriy.
- He conquers "Castle Jonon, then marched deeper into the Orcish province, sacking villages and exacting tribute along the way. The Great Svenny soon laid siege to the great metropolis of Al 'Cocer.", which he also captures.
- The Orcs, under " King Mutamin of Orcish Tonisberg" (also spelled Miamian) counter attack but are defeated.
- Men of Greyhawk begin to join Svenny.
- Svenny lays siege to Tonisberg which surrenders after 9 days.
- Orc King of Orcocco, "gathered up all his forces, five thousand men and Orcs," and set forth for Tonisberg.
- Though outnumbered Svenny defeats Orcocco and remains in possession of Tonisberg,

The remaining narrative - a fanciful tale involving the group marriage of three brothers to one of Svenny's daughters and their subsequent treachery, is surely fiction, though perhaps there was some event upon which the tale was hung.

Okay, when and where did all this happen?
Greg does actually provide us with an answer. On page 17 it says:
"After the city of Blackmoor and Zvenzen’s Freehold were sacked by the Egg of Coot and the Orcs of the Blackhand, while Svenny and the other ‘heroes’ of the town were away on an adventure, they were all exiled to the northwest where Svenny captured Al ‘Cocer (renamed Tonisborg) from the Orcs in the process of building Uther’s domain in the wilderness. Later, the Egg of Coot and the Ran of An Foo attempted a coordinated attack on the ‘heroes’ of the Kingdom of Blackmoor at Loch Gloomin, which turned into one of the largest battles ever fought in the Northlands. During the battle Svenny was cut down after killing over 200 Orcs during melee. After the battle was won, his body was taken by his friends to Brother Richard who resurrected him."

So per the FFC and BMRG #2, Freehold was sacked during the Second Coot Invasion and the heroes were subsequently exiled to Lake Gloomey, where, in July of 1972 the tabletop battle was fought where Svenny was cut down. This was year 997 of the accepted timeline (year 1052 per Megarry's notebook, but never mind that).

Given that Havard's introduction informs us that the Gazetteer is set in the year 1030 and Svenny description place him "in his mid 50s", then at the time the Battle of Lake Gloomy was fought, Svenny would have been about 21 years old, and Uther would only have been 12! So Svenny's age is good but Uther is a bit of a problem; He wasn't made king till much later when he was older. That's not the only problem though.

According to the story, Svenny has kids - at 21 he could have, but I'm not sure when he married Ximena except that I thought it was right around the time he built Freehold - which was only newly finished when it was sacked in 997. So it seems unlikely to me that Svenny had more than one "children" already - if he did, they were just babies at this time.

I can't find an exact birthdate for Sol, Svenny's son, but there are some clues that don't add up as straightforwardly as one might like. According to a character sheet for Sol Greg graciously allowed me to look at, he is "middle aged" in 1032 (17 years after he was captured by slavers). If middle aged = 40 or 45, then Sol would have been born in 992 or 987. Mind you, in 987 Svenny would only have been 11 or 12 years old! So, maybe middle aged in Blackmoor is 35 (sheesh). That would place Sols birth at about 997 - the year of the battle of Lake Gloomey, and presumably the first or second year of his marriage.

Another Clue is that Sol also has a son - Andor - who is 17 in 1030, and so was born in 1013. So, if Sol was born in 997, that would mean that he was only 16 years old when he became a father and 18 when he got captured by slavers. That works, I guess - he certainly wouldn't be the first nobleman to become a teen father. Maybe we could push Sol's birthyear back to 996, making him 17 when he became a father - but that would be pushing it.

In any case, it's clear that any children Svenny would have had at the time of the Lake Gloomey battle would have been infants, whereas in the story, it seems only a year or two could have passed during the active campaign of conquest, because it says " Soon, many Orcish rulers felt "vexed", so Orcocco marched with 5000 troops to remove Svenny from Tonisborg. That failed and "When this latest news reached Blackmoor's court, three brother-princes (two human and one halfOrc) of Carrion, Diego, Frederick, and Gonzalez, reasoned together: "The Great Svenny's affairs go well! Let us beg of him his daughter in marriage..."

I'd presume the girl must at least be a teenager, and that's impossible in the 990's at the time of the Lake Gloomey battle.

Moving on to another problem, that of geography. Greg places the conquest of the Orc province " to the northwest where Svenny captured Al ‘Cocer". Okay, NW of Lake Gloomey and Blackmoor in General is The Duchy of the Peaks, and to get there you have to pass through either the Duchy of Ten or the territory of The Egg of Coot. There is really no place to the NW you can fit all these Orc cities.

So to sum, Gregs placement in time and space has 3 problems:
1). Svenny's children would be infants, not of marriageable age.
2) Uther was way too young to have been on the throne.
3) There is no place to the NW where the Orc Province fits as described in the poem.

Given all that, let me propose an alternate timeline (and Greg if you are reading this, please feel free to comment!).

In The Newgate Gazeteer 3 we meet "Sir Sted Patro, Warrior, Captain of Svenny’s Bodyguard... He joined Svenny during Svenny’s years in exile and gained renown during Svenny’s conquest of Tonisberg." GS3p32
So that indicates these events occured before Newgate was built in 1019.

Further, Sol appears as a figure in the story as a grown man. If we assume some basis in truth there, then the conquest of the Orcs has to have taken place before Sol was enslaved in 1015, but when both he and his sister were at least teens and Uther was already at least a Baron.

That would give us a date range of roughly 1011-1015.

Before going further, let's consider geography. If NW of Lake Gloomey seems to be wrong, what clues from the story might point elsewhere?

In the story Svenny's troops camp outside of Bramwald as they gather the needed supplies for the expedition. Once properly supplied, Svenny " marched out of the city of Bramwald with his troops." If the Orc province were to the NW, Svenny would then have to cross all of Blackmoor and Ten to get there, so it makes little sense for him to have been camped there in the first place. Instead, we should presume the "Orc Province" is a fairly short march away. The nearest orc infested place to Bramwald is none other than the infamous Black Hills.

The Black Hills is where the otherwise unnamed "Great Black Castle of the Orcs" is presumed to be and is the home of the Orcs of the Black Hand and other tribes. "The Orc Province" of Blackmoor must surely be The Black Hills.

Another clue in support of this is that in the story, Greyhawk has some claims there and the Black Hills is closer to the Great Kingdom than even Blackmoor is.

Okay, with those clues in mind, let's turn to the d20/4e timeline for the range of 1011-1015. The first date of note is 1013, where there is a revolt in Ten against the Afridhi. Next is 1015 and all sorts of things happen, including these four:
- Thonia begins aggresions against Blackmoor
- Uther revolts and becomes king.
- Uther withdraws from Blackmoor town to save it from being a military target.
- Orcs of the Black Hand under Funk II lay siege to Bramwald

There's Bramwald and Orcs again! Now I'm not sure where there is more info about this event. It is not in the Zimriel Timeline and doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the likely places I've looked so far, - so if some one of you (hello Havard!) knows where this siege of Bramwald is detailed, please fill us in. Nevertheless, I would propose that this siege is where The Great Svenny Poem has it's roots.

Here is how I'd tentatively reconstruct the timeline:

1015 - Late Spring - As an ally of Thonia, Funk II leads an army into Blackmoor and besieges Bramwald.
Uther witdraws from Blackmoor

- Confident of imminent success, Funk II leaves the siege with a regiment of loyal orcs and enters Blackmoor castle, moving most of his regiment into the dungeon to search for his father's treasure. The remaining Orc Army at Bramwald is now in the hands of Ser Vyle - a half Orc Anti-Paladin. (1)

Summer - Uther orders Svenny to take such troops as he can muster to break the siege at Bramwald. (2)

- Vyle discovers that Svenny's family has taken refuge at Fairfield Abbey and dispatches the Carrion Brothers - a crack group of Orc assassins to capture the family. They manage only to get Elvira before being discovered.

- Ser Vyle sends a messenger informing Svenny that Elvira will be added to his harem if Svenny does not withdraw his forces. (3)

- Svenny presses the attack. The siege is broken and the orcs take flight back to the Black Hills. Svenny gives chase. Elvira is discovered by Sol, bloodied but alive.

- Sol is sent to guard a caravan of settlers heading north but captured by slavers in the Dragon Hills

1015 - Fall - Svenson, having been successful against Ser Vyle and now having his dander up, chases the fleeing Orcs into The Black Hills. Mercenaries, adventurers and Thonian deserters join his ranks. In a series of brilliant maneuvers and engagements, he sacks Castle Jonon, numerous villages, and captures fortress city of Al 'Cocer after a 9 day siege. Svenny's troops settle in for winter and Svenny renames the city Tonisborg . (4)

1016 - Orc King Orcocho, marches with five thousand men and orcs to retake Al 'Cocer, surrounding the city and cutting off the water supply. Undeterred, Svenny sallies forth with four hundred seasoned warriors. Despite their greater numbers the orcs panic and are slaughtered. The orc population in the Black Hills never recovers - being largely replaced by an influx of dwarves attracted to the mineral wealth found there.

1018: Uther intercepts an army sent by the Great Kingdom the Crystal Peaks and defeats them soundly.

1019 - Uther entices Svenny to leave Tonisborg by promoting him to baron and giving him the Barony of Williamsfort. Svenny founds house Zvenzen and builds a new castle at Newgate, which he makes the new seat of his barony.

Notes
(1) Typically semi-historical and legendary tales mangle proper nouns, especially unfamiliar the names. I've assumed that is the case with the GSP and made the following "corrections".
- Servile = Ser Vyle the Half Orc (half-orc being drawn from Frederick of Carrion)
- The three brothers of Carrion = Brothers of Carrion Assassin's Guild
- Orcocco/Mutamin/Miamian = Orcocho (orcocco seems too much like orc cocoa, heh, so I assumed the cc is pronounced "ch" like in Italian.)

(2) There is no abbey of Can and Bishop Carr is unlikely to be running an abbey (in retirement?) but Fairfield abbey is not too far and was run by Svenny's companion brother Richard.

(3) This incident "remembered" in the poem by the much exaggerated marriage of the half orc to Elvira.

(4) Greg notes in GS4 that Al Cocer and Tonisberg are acturally the same place renamed. It is not unlike these sort of historical tales to make one incident into two, so I followed Greg in merging them back together.

Okay ya'll - please lend me all your thought and let me know what you think could be improved.

Your timeline seems about right to me. I have to say, when I built Svenny's family tree, that I was hard pressed to have his children and grandchildren be of an age I could use for the adventures that I participated in during the 1999-2008 time frame with Dave Arneson when he was at Full Sail University in Orlando (I'd do the 2 hour drive each way to game with him and we met several times a year at local gaming conventions, too) and the play-by-post games I participated in with Rafael and the company of the maiden from 2005 to the present. I had Sol being born in 995 and Elvira born in 994. And Elvira's son Sven was born in 1010, when mom was only 16. Obviously married very young the first time and that marriage ending very quickly and without offspring...

In Svenny's genealogy, I set the marriage date in 994, the same year Elvira was born. Sol was born the next year. I guess, I didn't consider the date when we built the freehold, that might have been a few months later, in real time, around Christmas 1971. I had taken an architectural design class in the fall and used what I learned to do the floor plans of the freehold shortly afterward.