Noble Houses of Ten

[aldarron]

There are hints that the other Barons of Ten were the descendants of pirates and bandits (for example in the d20 timeline) - that stuff in the DA series about the "unwanted" seems to have been made up by Ritchie. Arneson never endorsed that storyline.

Zeitgeist campaign goes along DA4 approach on this point... Arneson never endorsed that, too?

I don't believe so. ZG followed some of the DA 4 material for very practical (and understandable) reasons, which of course Arneson agreed with, but when asked about the D&D DA product line he took credit for contributing to DA 1-3, but basically disavowed DA 4 Duchy of Ten. (can find the interviews if you need but feeling lazy at the moment). I'm paraphrasing here, but at one point he said the ZG group planned to handle it "much better". In the end they decided not to change it much for practical reasons, but it does show what Arneson would rather have done.

And, in fact, if you look at the ZG material, while they do generally follow the DA4 storyline, there is a bit of nudging in a direction closer to Arneson's original vision while not making it totally unpalatable to DA4 fans. They recast the unwanted as pirates/rebels and call their fight against Thonia "The Pirates Rebellion"

If you go back and consider only Ten references in the FFC or in Garbage Pits, it's a very different world from the DA 4 Ten, and frankly the unwnated story line doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me - if there were such escapees, how could they possibly settle down as renegade farmers in a monster infested northern wilderness already home to bandits, Pictish wildmen, pirates and nomads who are themselves active slavers. Kinda like going from the frying pan into the fire. Further, the storyline seems to ignore the fact that Ten lies between the Duchy of Blackmoor and the Duchy of the Peeks. It also seems to totally ignore the existence of the Southlands - which would have been both closer and much more attractive as an area for these "unwanted" escapees from Thonia to go to. So I cry foul on the whole storyline.