Making sense of the Mage Wars (Again)

[aldarron]

I see what you both are saying, but lets look at this closely:

The Set up:
Campaign Sourcebook page 69:

Greedy, power-mad sorcerers and wizards populated the North. As their numbers grew, they hatched plans to dominate Blackmoor and subjugate all within their grasp — an endeavor that quickly succeeded. One by one, human cities and frontier settlements fell under the mages’
power. The dwarves fled to the safety of their underground dwellings. The elves blended into their forests. The halflings tried to stay out from underfoot, and the Docrae were enslaved. When the conquest was finished, the entire area was under the magical warlords’ direct and brutal
control. These mages soon wished to expand their borders at the expense of each other and came to despise their neighboring brethren. Their hatred grew to the point where they turned on each other and openly battled for ultimate control of the land and its wild magic. Thus began the
Mage Wars.

From MMRPG episode 47 The Night of Goss:

Raddan Goss, a student of the teachings of Kargas Dolunt, had learned how to increase the effectiveness of Dolunt’s theories of land-magic transfers and had discovered how to increase one’s self to an almost divine state of being.

After years of exhaustive study he finally decided that more land was necessary for his experimentation and violently expelled a neighboring sorcerer from his lands. That sorcerer was allied with a powerful woman named Vadaley who brought quick retribution to one of Raddan’s own students situated near her lands. This conflict began the Mage Wars erupted into a massive conflict for dominance of the lands of the North and their magical abilities.

The Wizards Cabal p 5.

Soon casters began claiming populated areas as well. They did not demand the right to rule, nor attempt to eliminate local governments, at least not yet... As transgressions grew more and more frequent, due to the loss of available land and the fact that every mage’s territory now abutted several others, the retribution grew ever more vicious as well. Finally, that retribution turned violent. Mages engaged in spell-duels, tossing globes of fire and bolts of lightning while swooping through the air over populated areas. Further, these duels were so quick and vicious, when the militia finally arrived to put an end to the carnage, they found nothing but burned-out husks of villages, with no signs of those who had destroyed them.
It was a half-elven (Cumasti) wizard named Raddan Goss who provided the spark that would ignite this conflict into a true war. Stymied in his quest to expand his territory, he wrested complete control of his lands from the local government, proclaiming himself Wizard King of what had
been a semi-autonomous barony. Leading their armies into the field, he assaulted the territory of a neighboring wizard, becoming the first mage to use overt violence in this struggle for eldritch territory. Striking with surprise and overwhelming mystical force, he slew the small cadre of wizards who had claimed the neighboring lands and claimed them as his own. One of those who fell to his assault, however, was a dear
friend of Surrinya Vadaley, a sorceress who governed her own territory many leagues away. When news of her companion’s death reached her, Surrinya flew into a rage. Following Raddan’s example, she too claimed full governmental control of the territory that, to that point, she had simply used as a studying ground and protected from other mages. Unable to march her army across half the North to strike at Raddan directly, she instead invaded the territory of a wizard she knew to be a friend of Raddan’s, annexing the land and putting the wizard to the sword.

So we have a situation where the Northern marches is carved up between multiple mages, first as mage territories. The fuedal (imperial) government remains intact.

Wizards begin scheming to overthrow their local governments per the CS.

Raddan Goss is therefore one of several who overthrow the government in their territory. Could this be Blackmoor Castle/village?
If it was, this would mean that Raddan overthrows the Duke of Blackmoor - the appointed ruler of the Northern Marches by the Empire.

However the text says Raddan "wrested complete control of his lands from the local government." "Local Government" surely doesn't sound like the Ducal seat of the North. It also say that this "local Government" was a "semi-autonomous barony". Blackmoor at this time was a Duchy, not a Baronage, but in any case, we have to ask, "semi-autonomous" from whom?

If we take it to be referring to Blackmoor and that Blackmoor is "semi-autonomous" from the empire, then surely all the baronages would be semi-autonmous too. I mean it doesn't make sense that the duke at Blackmoor is semi-autonomous but the baron of the lakes is not.

I think the plain reading of the "local semi-autonomous baronial government", is that it is a place semi-autonomous from the power center at Blackmoor.

Goss is one of several "Greedy, power-mad sorcerers and wizards", who plots to overthrow the local authority and succeeds, but he is the first to take it a step further and attempt to conquer more land.

There is no hint here that Goss has Blackmoor castle - in fact he is never associated with the place. The land he does have seems wholly inadequate, which makes perfect sense if he was in control of Boggy Bottom or Pim or even Frog Island, but would elicit some comment if he already had Blackmoor Castle.

To me, the silence regarding Blackmoor Castle/Dungeon and Goss is very suggestive that he never had much to do with the place, for whatever reason, he seems to have left it to rot.