Tell me about the Iron Duke

[Havard]

BTW, do we know who Veslo was based on? Don't have my notes right now, but not sure if I ever pinned that one down.

Oh yeah, took me forever to figure it out. See this https://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/vie...f=22&t=945

In short it's Wesely (Veslo). Back in 2010, Wesely told me the story of rescuing Lotsa the Elf maid and being rewaraded with a 24 hour marriage. The result of which was a female half-elf character he played later. The Half Elf is mentioned in the d20 books. I asked what the half elf's name was and he said (paraphrasing) "Martan Vessaloy or something like that." I took me forever to realiize what he told me was Veslo Meridan backwards and slightly garbled.

Brilliant! I did suspect the Wesely / Veslo similarities, but it is nice to get it confirmed and I hhad missed the name of that half elf. Thanks!

The basis of my theory is exactly this. Arneson complained that he wasn't consulted by Ritchie on DA4. I don't have the exact quote, but this lead me to believe that he did give final approval of DA1-3 or that he was at least happy with how these turned out.

Alright. My read on Arneson comments is that much like the Supp II Blackmoor edit with it's changes and added material, he accepted DA 1-3 as "okay but not exactly what he wanted".

Yep, this is the difference in our interpretation. As I recall it, I have never heard Dave express any dissatisfaction with DA1-3. All those quotes were related to DA4.

If we read the DA modules (including DA4) next to the ZGG books, the similarities in terms of background content are stunning. ZGG added material, but with a few explicit exceptions generally kept things very close to what we learn in the DA modules.

Yeah, mostly so, and somewhere there is a discussion, (was it with Dustin Clingman?) where Zeitgeist games made the conscious decision not to rewrite/fix Blackmoor but to build on the DA material because of the ready made fan base and their expectations. It was a business decision.

Again, Dusin was talking about DA4 and the Afridhi invaisions which they kept even though Dave had other plans for the Duchy. I do believe the Afridhi were part of his campaign, but as we have been speculating in the past, Dave's plans for the Duchy of Ten were probably linked to the Ran of Ah' Foo etc. We also know that Deborah Ritchie added details to Afridhi culture, but I have never seen Dave express explicit dissatisfaction with their portrayal at least. Greg Svenson once described his memories of the Afridhi in Dave's campaign as something akin to Devil Worshippers, but I don't know that much more about them. Toska Rusa was apparently based on a Deborah Nafziger.

Interesting naming conventions for female NPCs: "Toska, Lotsa (pun noted), Rissa.... "

Now, if we reject not just basic plotlines, but the majority of the DA modules as strongly deviant from Dave's vision of Blackmoor, I think the logical conclusion is also that the wast majority of the ZGG books need to be rejected given how closely they follow the DA modules. To me, that is too extreme an approach. In fact, I think the DA modules are likely closer to Dave's vision as they don't contain the changes required to adapt the setting to 3E which is more different from the way Dave ran his games than BECMI is.

Another question is how closely the DA modules and the entire King Uther era of Blackmoor follows events from actual gaming sessions. If that is the main point of interest rather than Dave's overall vision for his world, then I think it is better to stick to the FFC, Supplement II and tales from players alone. But I think that we can talk about Dave's visions for the setting beyond what he was able to run for his players.

-Havard