Castle Factions

[AV_Guy]

Hey everyone!

Random question for you all regarding factions.

I'm recently out of the dark ages and i'm building a large moc display for my castle sets i loved as a kid.

So i have a quesiton regarding black monarchs.  Are they good guys or bad guys?

I know alot of sets are easy to figure out.

Lion king good

Falcon lord bad, (enemy of lion king

Wolf pack and forestmen, neutral (hate anyone who tries to collect taxes)

Fright nights, bad obviously.

Dragon nights bad

kingdom rebirth of lion knights, still good.

But i'm unsure of black monarchs.  On the sea serpent, there are black monarchs and black falcons manning the boat.  Which makes me think they are allies

But on 6059 knights stronghold, you see falcons attacking monarchs.

There are also several sets from black nights labeled "kings XYZ"

So are the black monarchs technically a kingdom but bad? 

 

Thank you in advance, i know its a rather silly question, but the purest in me has to have my MOC be accurate :)

 

[KotZ]

Black Monarchs were way before my time, but I would guess they are somewhat of antiheroes, if they work with the Falcons and also fight them.

[Trance89]

I think the Black Knights/Monarchs are a neutral faction. They are a powerful ally but fearsome enemy. Something might have happened between them and the Black Falcons.

[amechanicalmind]

I believe the above advert was the first to start to mention anything about implied good or evil factions (the Wolfpack being "a feared group of renegades").  The Wolfpack was the latest of the ones mentioned, too, so before that, we just had to use our imaginations.   

Prior to the Wolfpack, we had to decide on our own who was a good force or evil (or neither).  I often found myself playing any side, and this allowed any other faction to ally itself with another.  To me, the black knights were usually the good guys, as they had the coolest shields imo, the crusaders were their foes, and the forestmen would switch it up based on who were paying them in yellow studs and cups.  The black falcons would join up with the Crusaders to even the odds, and the few very old classic castle knights I had from 6077, 6075, and 6083 would lay waste to anything as they were ancient knights of yore!

I miss when we weren't spoon fed the political dynamics of toys.

Edited June 4, 2019 by amechanicalmind

[AV_Guy]

Thank you guys!  And i do agree mechanical mind, you bring up good points.  Accept for me, lion knights always good (they reminded me of Richard the Lionheart)  But they always seamed to take over falcon fortress because i like the curved turrets better lol.  And the poor falcons where left sleeping under the stars with the forest men

[x105Black]

My experience was similar to amechanicalmind.  My brothers and I made it up as we went.  But we didn't even know the names of the factions.  To us it was just the Lions, the Dragons, the Hawks, the Wolves, and the Deer (though we did call them Forestmen).  It wasn't so much about good vs evil, so much as protagonist vs antagonist.  Dragons were my protagonists, Hawks were my brother's, led by a knight from the classic yellow Castle set that he got through a trade with a friend.  Lions were plentiful and made good antagonists for everyone.  Forestmen were like hunstsmen, allied more with the peasant villagers than any specific faction.  Wolves were on the side of my Dragons.

I really enjoyed the open-ended play back then, and I agree it was nice not to be forced into more specific choices based on a lot of lore and detail.  The fact that there weren't many such details around (in my memory) meant that I was always free to decide for myself.  This made it easier to integrate minfigures from other themes, including Town, Paradisa, a Space knights faction, Pirates, and their antagonist Red / Blue Coat sailor enemies.  It all fit into my lore because I never really knew what the lore was supposed to be, although one could argue that even if I did know, I wouldn't have paid it much attention anyways...

[zoth33]

I used to make them whatever I wanted to be.  I usually used the forestmen and crusaders/lion knights for good.  Wolfpack was used as a straight up robber faction for me.  I used the dragon knights and black monarchs as bad guys until I started using 1x1 black rounds as evil knights.  I also used other 1x1 round colors for different ghouls or demons until they actually started making minifig heads of just black or different colors like red or white.  Not until they made fantasy era with the great evil skull heads did i use much else.  Now there are a ton of great minifig heads to choose from to make whatever factions you want.

[Eggyslav]

I didn't see the factions as good, or evil, unless it was obvious (Fright Knights, I'm looking at you!). To me, they were just warring kingdoms, each with their own agendas. In my headcannon, The Black Knights were the dominating faction, as their castle is called Black Monarch's Castle, untill The Black Monarch died (It was the first Castle subtheme to introduce ghosts, and there's one in BMC. I do believe it is the very spirit of Black Monarch himself). The Kingdom then split, the remnants of Black Knights occupied the old Capitol. The Black Falcons at first were mercenaries and allies to Black Knights, but then they became a force on their own, trying to take the capitol. The war between Falcons and Black knights left the kingdom in turmoil, Bandits and highwaymen run rampant, and formed the Wolfpack. The atrocities of the conflict, and Wolfpack's extertion caused peasants to revolt against the warring factions, they moved to forest and became guerrilla warriors, robbing others. This is how the Forestmen came to be. And crusaders were a band of knights on a mission from neighbouring Lion Kingdom to bring peace and order to the Black Monarch's land. (Sidenote: Black Falcons are old enemies of Lion Kingdom). Ultimately, the war was won by Black Knights, aided by Majisto the Wizard and his Dragons, who took over the faction, and renamed it as Dragon Masters (This is why Black Knights and Dragon Masters have similar looking crest). For their help in driving Black Falcons out, The Crusaders got themselves their own land, which became the New Lion Kingdom. Then, a new, Dark power has risen, and invaded the land. Basil the Batlord, and his Fright Knights!

Edited June 5, 2019 by Eggyslav

[Henjin_Quilones]

The Wolfpack was always my favorite, due in no small part to my favorite animal as a child being the wolf. They typically allied themselves with the Forestmen, as both were a bit outside the main stream of law, but both were heroic like Robin Hood and the like--noble outlaws. The Black Knights (probably the same as the Black Monarchs, but in the literature I had they were the Black Knights) were the most populous of my knight collection, and they were usually the "bad" guys of the established order, against whose laws the outlaws were out. They were not usually evil, though, just unjust to the common man, or at least to some common men. Since I had only one Crusader, that shield went to a special knight, usually a leader among the Black Knights, and my few Black Falcons were interchangeably allied with the Black Knights or the Wolfpack, depending on the backstory I had devised that particular time. 

I missed the rest of castle, until (just barely) Kingdoms and Castle 2013, when I had come out of my dark ages. I wanted many sets from the mid-late 90s, but never got them due to other prioritization of limited LEGO resources, sadly. Even now, though, I refuse to adhere to the good/evil paradigm that LEGO puts forward, and the knights with dragons often end up being the good guys for me, and the lions end up being the disliked rival faction (though not evil). 

But to answer the original question, I don't think any of the factions were good or bad inherently in the Golden Age of LEGO castle; Crusaders, Forestmen, Black Falcons, and Black Knights were all neutral until the builder him- or herself decided.  

[TeriXeri]

 

We didn't have that many very early Castle sets, but I remember playing with figures from Knight's Procession.

Later I got the Viking Voyager, great Crusaders figure pack, even tho it was a boat.

A friend had the Wolfpack keep and Forestmen sets.

Wasn't until years later I got more Castle sets, with the Dragon Wagon, Wizard cart and Royal King/Drawbridge/Skeleton Surprise.

And at the end, 2 Fright Knight sets (a tiny boxed flying machine and Dragon with neon orange wings)

That said, I often built bigger castles with parts from Pirate sets as they had wall/rock panels as well, and the raised baseplate from Enchanted Island.

 

Rest of my Castle sets didn't come till Nexo Knights, which could be many factions by imagination. If you for example exchanged heads, you could have a Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, White, Black Knight faction on it's own, each with their own modern armor/crest. 

Maybe not very "Classic",  but it's an option.

Edited June 5, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Aine]

2 hours ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

But to answer the original question, I don't think any of the factions were good or bad inherently in the Golden Age of LEGO castle; Crusaders, Forestmen, Black Falcons, and Black Knights were all neutral until the builder him- or herself decided.  

Yes, that's how I felt the issue. I was under the spell of old Robin Hood tv series from 1980's, so the Forestmen were "good" guys, and the Lions not that much, as they were the main antagonists of the Merry Men, but then again I had just two of the Forestmen, so I was forced into all kind of alliances so that my games could work. :-)
Also, I thrown astronauts and city dudes into the mix, so there go your factions... :-D
It'll be cool if lego returned to the more classic view on this, and made neutral factions again, but yeah, first we need a return of castle. ;-)

[MAB]

15 hours ago, Aine said:

Yes, that's how I felt the issue. I was under the spell of old Robin Hood tv series from 1980's, so the Forestmen were "good" guys, and the Lions not that much, as they were the main antagonists of the Merry Men, but then again I had just two of the Forestmen, so I was forced into all kind of alliances so that my games could work. :-)
 

1

It depends on the perspective of who is telling the story anyway. Robin Hood is a thieving outlaw if you are one of the law abiding citizens of Nottingham.  Prince John was the usurping brother of King Richard from one point of view, or just taking on a role that his brother didn't fulfill as he was more interested in fighting in other countries and living in France if you are a follower of John.

[Henjin_Quilones]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

It depends on the perspective of who is telling the story anyway. Robin Hood is a thieving outlaw if you are one of the law abiding citizens of Nottingham.  Prince John was the usurping brother of King Richard from one point of view, or just taking on a role that his brother didn't fulfill as he was more interested in fighting in other countries and living in France if you are a follower of John.

And that was the beauty of the old factions - any of them could be good or bad, depending on the viewpoint of the builder, without it being pre-programmed into the builds. Perspective was everything!

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

And that was the beauty of the old factions - any of them could be good or bad, depending on the viewpoint of the builder, without it being pre-programmed into the builds. Perspective was everything!

In a way, it still is. For example, Monster Fighters was mean to be the monsters trying to get the moonstones so that they help Lord Vampyre unleash his evil monster army, and the humans were there to stop them. But for me, I preferred it with the monsters being the good guys and the evil humans were attacking them.

 

[x105Black]

19 hours ago, MAB said:

In a way, it still is. For example, Monster Fighters was mean to be the monsters trying to get the moonstones so that they help Lord Vampyre unleash his evil monster army, and the humans were there to stop them. But for me, I preferred it with the monsters being the good guys and the evil humans were attacking them.

That's great, but from the sounds of it you made a choice to deviate from the backstory.  Back in time, there wasn't really a backstory to deviate from.  I personally prefer that unadulterated way of seeing things.

[MAB]

Yeah, although it depends how much you want to get involved with the backstory. I never watched any of the online media associated with it, I don't know if there was other stuff. I found that easy to ignore. Whereas if they did a Robin Hood set, I imagine most people are already swayed by the folklore.

 

If they did a set with these two factions,

I wonder how many would take the boars as baddies rather than just opposition to the other faction. The Evil Knight is one of my favourites (much more than the Heroic one) and with a change of head becomes far less evil.

[x105Black]

I guess it would depend on how they were presented.  In my case, I would probably take the Heroic Knight as my protagonist faction, but that's mostly because boars don't appeal to me.  I do prefer the color scheme of the Evil Knight, but I also enjoy the monochromatic crown design.

[leafan]

I just see all of the factions as neither inherently good nor inherently bad. They're neutral, until you enter their base and start killing their dudes.

[Mafortune]

Do we know who the leading minifigure(s) are for black falcon or black knights?

Is there a Black Falcon? A Black monarch? Or a Black knight?
 

For the latter there is a minifigure set called  «black knight», containing a knight in armor with red dragon plumes. But the leader in the set «black knights Castle» has Yellow plumes, so who is then their leader?

[Beleg the Ranger]

I missed out on a lot of the Castle themes, but I've always seen it is that any can be good or bad in classic castle. That is part of the beauty of it. For example, the Black Falcon Knights are valiant warriors, fighting against the vain, decadent Lion knights, or the forestmen "Rob from the rich" (Crusaders) and "Give to the poor" (whatever City folks who happen to be lying around) The only exceptions are the obviously cruel fright knights. The new castle themes tend to have inherently bad and good sides, which is one reason why I don't like them as much.

[Brick_Rattlehead]

I've been playing Lego since I was a kid in late 80s and I owned at least few  sets from each factions from late 80's up to Castle Siege . I remember when playing with my younger brother, the bad guys has always been the Wolfpack , Black knight , and later on the Fright knight, while Black falcon and Forestman being a neutral side. Then again, this is just my own imagination.

However, certain factions are meant to be the bad/evil sides according to Lego official info. For example, the more recent factions that comes from minifigs series such as Evil knight and Frighetning knight, the official bio for these characters says that they've worked with the baddies such as Basil the batlord and Cedric the Bull. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Brick_Rattlehead