Provinces of the Great Kingdom

[Havard]

Lately I've been mulling something over.

I've mentioned before that I'm not thrilled with calling the Great Empire "Thonia" as a formal name; mostly because that name was slapped on by TSR fanboys in the mid 1980's and has no history with the setting. I don't mind using it as a name of a race or class of people (high Thonians, etc.), but have only reluctantly used it for the Great Kingdom.

At this point I think it is fair to say that it is pretty clear that we are interested in different things from Blackmoor.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but if our discussions are to get any further it might be useful to clarify where we stand. Perhaps instead of focusing on discovering a "True Blackmoor" we could move on to discuss different continuities of Blackmoor according to our own preferences.

Personally I will always use Thonia for my Blackmoor.. It is not a name invented by Dave Arneson, but since Dave didnt make up a specific name for his Great Kingdom (except Geneva maybe...) I have no problem using it. Especially since it is used both in the DA modules and the D20 line.

If you want to use the Great Kingdom of Aerdy for your continuity, I think that is fair. You should probably know that this is very much in line with the Greyhawk setting. Greyhawk did have a Great Kingdom of Aerdy (old Aerdy) which at one point covered almost the entire continent of Flanaess. Using the name Aerdy does suggest that your continuity is closer to Gygax' vision of their shared world.

I also think it is unfair to refer to David Ritchie as a TSR fanboy with no history with the setting.

-Havard