10-04-2019, 01:23 PM
Havard Wrote:I think the reference to Ra-All being king is problematic. The entire point of Uther's story, as I see it, is that Uther leads a rebellion that leads to Blackmoor becoming an independent kingdom of the Thonian Empire. How would you reconcile this story with the idea of Ra-All being king before Uther?
Now, it is possible that the DA modules retconned parts of the original campaign to set up the position of Uther as the first king. Another possibility is that the original campaign was simply inconsistent when it came to titles and political structures. It is however, my impression that Blackmoor was part of the Great Kingdom throughout the period detailed in the FFC, so it seems strange that Blackmoor would have kings who were not kings of the Great Kingdom itself in this period. King Robert I is the founder of Blackmoor, but we know that he was also the King of the Great Kingdom.
What is your take?
-Havard
To some extent how any of us resolves grey areas will depend upon the scaffolding we storybuild off of. For me, I start with the FFC and only contradict what it says if there appears to be a real mistake. Since "the king" is mentioned a fair amount of times there and in other early stuff, that is something I would hold as foundational scaffolding. The other thing I would look to is the ZG material where it goes into greater detail than the DA material or where it might contradict the DA material. This is because the ZG material is more recent, and because it was produced under the direct oversite of Arneson unlike the DA material that had largely been taken out of his hands. This is not to say that Arneson is the only voice for Blackmoor by any means, but to me it makes sense to favor his vision over others for the setting he created.
In the FFC, Blackmoor is nominally a province of the Great Kingdom, but the Great Kingdom is clearly not in direct control. Blackmoor is what you might call a vassal state. This is why the local barons etc raise armies independently. If you look at the 2nd and 3rd Coot invasion, The Great Kingdom is essentially another polity allied with the good guys but not in control of them and not responsible for managing the defense.
So, turning to the ZG timeline, Thonia conquers Blackmoor in year 0, but later looses control, at least by the time of the Mage Lords who are clearly not at all vassals of the Great Kingdom. According to the excellent historical summary in The Wizards Cabal (The only ZG book where Arneson has a direct writing credit) on page 7, the "wizard king" Raddan is in full defiance of the Great Kingdom who withdraw completely from the area. Later, after the Mage Wars end with Skelfer and the Wizards Cabal in control, Skellfer makes a new treaty with the Great Kingdom, forming a mutual defense alliance. As in the FFC, it is clear the Great Kingdom is not in direct control of Blackmoor, but the treaty could imply Blackmoor is entering a satellite state arrangement, with taxes and some fealty being owed in return for military aid.
Uther, per the timeline of the 4e sourcebook, p148, breaks this alliance in 1015 - not for the purpose of declaring himself king - but because he supports Han Aleford in defiance of the emperor. There is no reason to suppose, per this material that there wasn't a king (or queen, as I proposed with Maragaine) before him.
So that's how I see it makeing sense, but like I said it depends on your preferred scaffolding and what vision of Blackmoor you like best - if you prioritize the DA material over the FFC or ZG/MMRPG stuff you are going to get a different outcome. Having said that, I'm not sure that the DA material strongly contradicts the above scenerio. What I mean is that, in DA1 at least, Uther is depicted as fighting a war of independance, as you said, but I'm not sure how much control the Great Kingdom was supposed to have over Blackmoor before Uther. Perhaps Blackmoor could have had a "mutual defense" arrangement like that depicted in the ZG books?