Tell me about the Iron Duke

[aldarron]

Lortz was employed at Adventure Games and that's when he was tapped to play the dwarf - that's apparently why we get the whole Uberstar is kidnapped and out of the picture and now Lortz Kharnundhrum is in charge of the dwarves, because Walter Oberstar wasn't there anymore and Lortz was.

Thanks, Aldy! Did Lortz not play with Arneson prior to his short stint with Chaosium? - That's the kind of stuff that I plainly don't keep track of any more, these days.

Not sure. What I know about this time period comes mostly from talking with Chirine. We should ask him to have a look at this thread and shed what light he can. The only difficulty is that Chirine was focused on Tekumel products and not so involved with what Arneson was doing with Blackmoor. At this point, I'm not sure who might be a better source though since Lortz has passed.

This is important, though: Were the stories about Riza Aleford, St. Stephen, and so on, that we get to play in the DA modules perhaps simply where the campaign actually was, at this point? Or, are there documents/testimonies that firmly set them in the 1970s/pre-TSR days?

That, again, would perhaps explain some of the circumstances regarding the Iron Duke. If the DA modules are essentially campaign replays up to DA4, then that points into a certain direction. If the campaign stopped substantially before that, that points to another.

My sense is that Arneson was developing new plotlines for the Blackmoor Chronicles that may well have featured a Rissa Aleford kidnapping plot as a hook to explore TotF. I don't think the TotF and CoG plots were campaign replays but I don't know. Part of the reason I don't think so is because of Lortz.

Lortz took over as Dwarf king and was presumably involved in the dwarf/orc wars so that implies that they were adventuring in the Black Hills, Crystal Peaks and so on. GPoD is also set in the Dragon hills - all of which seems pretty removed from the events of the DA series and also seems like the sort of plot lines TSR would be less interested in.

The DA modules are set in 1025 so that makes sense. The ZGG material was pushed to 1030, but in retrospect that decision seems a bit pointless since in the ZGG timeline, nothing of importance happens between 1025 and 1030. Also, important plotlines that seemed urgent in 1025 ended up being dragged out all the way to 1030 because of this decision.

The Temple of the Frog and the City of the Gods had been explored during the FFC run, but these are locations that are well suited for multiple expeditions.

- Which is the point. Those plotlines canonically happen when Greg was already playing as Sol, in "The Garbage Pits of Despair", and when the Great Svenny as a main character had already been retired. Could be Ritchie and later ZGG just put them in the order that suited their respective plotlines best; or, could be that order came from Arneson.

Yeah, great point - Greg did mention playing in the playtest of GPoD. The Great Svenny gets no mention in GPoD and that is probably because he was off managing his domains. My feeling is that Ritchie choose to utilize the character more in the DA series. I think Greg was still in Boston for much of this time?