Noble Houses of Blackmoor (Updated)

[Havard]

Working on some timeline stuff and its been forcing me to think about Baron Jenkins and Fant.

Here we have them listed as houses, but there are a couple problems doing that.

The obvious one is that in other cases, we use the baron's first name - for example, Baron Alvarez, Baron Calvin and so on. We never say Baron Andahar.

So theoretically, it should be Baron Jenkins of house x and Baron Fant of house x, etc.

Always interesting to hear fresh perspectives from you Aldarron!

I think that looking at RW comparisons, there are conventions where you would adress a noble with Title+First Name and Title + Family Name. I believe you would always adress a noble directly with Title+First Name, as opposed to commoners who would be adressed as Mister + Last Name. This may be different in non-English cultures.

Here is the other thing. Jenkins was, from the start, in control of Glendower and the surrounding land.

If you look at DA1, the description of the Baron of Glendower really sounds a lot like Duane Jenkins and his character. There is even the bit about being bitten by the undead (a lycanthrope in DA1, but a vampire in the original campaign).

DA1 clearly has a lot of name changes, and they all do have a kind of similar style, which probably means they were done by David Ritchie or somebody at TSR. I think "Bascom Ungulian" was an editorial change to Jenkins. The other thing to note is that the Ungulian family has had control of Glendower for some time.

In any case "Jenkins" makes more sense to me as a first name, and that would apparently make him an Ungulian - presumably the father of Bascom.

I think you are right. The FFC does tell us that Jenkins' family gets holdings at Glendower and the similarities between Ungulian and Jenkins are interesting. I think there could be several reasons why they changed both the name and nature of the lord of this realm. Also not sure if that decision was Rithie's, Arneson's or TSR's. Still I do prefer having them as two separate characters given the time that has passed between the FFC and the DA modules. Its a little weird if the father became a Vampire and the son became a Werewolf, but other than that I don't see why the father and son theory could not work. For some reason I assumed that Sir Jenkins was discredited and ousted or killed during the Great Vampire Hunt (even though Fant was the main target of that hunt).

Same reasoning applies to Fant.

When the elves take over Blackmoor castle after the second Coot invasion and the invaders are defeated, CoTT 4 #6 says Fant "has returned to Bramwald".

So apparently Baron Fant was from Bramwald. Sometime not long after his return there he becomes the Vampire Sir Fang.

The Baron of Bramwald in DA1 is given as Bram Tagus. So I think it makes sense to suppose that Baron Fant was also a Tagus.

Something to consider anyway.

This is interesting! I don't have access to CoTT 4 #6, so I'm not sure what the context of that would have been? Fant became Baron of Blackmoor after the First Coot Invasion during which "The Weasel" had turned traitor and had disappeared afterwards. It is certainly possible that he could have come out of Bramwald. I am not sure how old Bramwald is, but my impression is that both Bramwald and Erak predate the baronies of the "New Lands" (established by Uther's allies) and may have been part of the first era of Thonian Settlements in The North.

-Havard