Marcellius of Tangor and The Dog Duke

[Havard]

No comments on this?
-Havard

It took a while, but I'm really warming to this story. I'm thinking the Wizard er, whats is name, Greywindow ( :lol: ) could have polymorphed all the dukes soldiers, not just the duke, at the start of the battle. Like the scene in Willow, where Bavmorda turns everybody into pigs. There's also that bit in the Odyssey.

Hey, no making fun of names! :x

The Willow scene idea is fun and could very well work

How did you come up with the name for the Duke?

The names for the Duke and Wizard were made up in the following way: I took a name from the D20 book and combined it with a name from a list of Anglo-Saxon names I found somewhere on the Internet. I like the Anglo-Saxon names because they seem fairly exotic to me, and almost have a Tolkienesque feel to them. The Thonian names in the D20 sourcebook feel too modern sounding IMO, but I like using them as a starting point. The names are non-canonical, but the titles ("Dog Duke") and characters are from the FFC. Interestingly some rulers are referred to as Dukes and others as barons. My theory is that Blackmoor early on was a Duchy, but after the Bloody Duke, it was reduced to a Barony under the Earldom of Vestfold.

Now, for the timeline I'm working on I would alter the story a bit as follows:

- The Duke is alarmed at the growth of the Id faction. Perhaps family memebers have joined the cult.
- If The Wizards Cabal exists at this time, perhaps the believe they can control and make use of the cult. They warn the Duke not to take any action against them.
- Unable to call the northern lords to arms, the Duke begins secret negotiations with Uhlmar and the elves.
- The Dukes personal forces (a few hundred?) and the armies of the Elves mount a joint surprise attack on the Temple of Id.
- Gruewimper (er spelling again) the Wizard (High Spellwise?) is either sent to teach the Duke a lesson (if the Cabal is involved) or is himself a secret convert to ID, and Polymorphs him and his men into dogs.
- The Dukes "men" run off, leaveing the elves to face Id alone.
- The Cabal does not interfere futher in the battle, because it is to thier advantage to have the elves suffer losses. They "win" either way.
- Though transformed, the Duke refuses to leave the battle.
- Marcellius throws himself on top of the duke during a hail of poison arrows and is killed, trasforming back to human and pinning the Duke for the rest of the battle.

Its a pretty good summary of the events. Even if the Wizards Cabal did not exist as by canon, I think it would still be common for lords to have court wizards. My original idea was that the wizard was working for the Emperor who wanted to see the elves fail, but I also like your suggestion that the wizard could be an Id Cultist, or perhaps even that the Emperor could be an Id Cultist. It really depends on how you see the Empire at the time. The empire was on multiple occasions in history a supporter of Blackmoor, so it would be wrong to categorize them as always evil IMO.

-Havard