Does anyone understand how the Lodoss Wars animes are set up?

[LordVyreth]

I've been watching the more recent Lodoss Wars lately (the heroic knight one, with an adult Spark and those weird cartoon shorts at the end of every episode.) I'm curious about how it's set up. It seems to borrow much of the early back story of the first half of the original series. How the characters met, the fate of Woodchuck, the original war and the death of Emperor Geld, and all that are about the same. But it also changes some things, even if you ignore everything from the original series after to the point where Karla enters Woodchuck's body. For example, Shiress and Orson are re-introduced, Deedlit apparently didn't meet Pirotess yet, and so on. Am I missing a series some where in between, or some other explanation? Is that other Lodoss War series (Legend of Crystania or something like that, I never saw that one,) somehow related? And which storyline more faithfully ties to the original D&D campaign that started the series?

 

[Pants]

The Chronicles of the Heroic Knight series (the one with Spark) retells certain aspects of the OVA series. From what I remember, both series are based off of either some novels or manga and the Chronicles follows the original story closer than the OVA series. Certain parts of the continuity are changed, namely that Kashue fought the evil-warlord-guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember-at-the-moment and some other parts.

 

[WayneLigon]

Am I missing a series some where in between, or some other explanation? Is that other Lodoss War series (Legend of Crystania or something like that, I never saw that one,) somehow related? And which storyline more faithfully ties to the original D&D campaign that started the series?

You didn't miss anything; from Animeondvd dot com

The history of Lodoss itself is rather interesting. At the time of the OVA's, the novels that were being written (which were based off of the RPG gaming session) weren't complete and were pretty extensive in their scope. It simply couldn't all be fit in a 13 episode OVA series. The animators took a few liberties, changed things around and released what they had.

With the TV series, they've gone back to more true origins of the book. The show begins five years after the death of the dwarf Ghimli, who was seen in the OVA's. So in one sense, you do need to see the OVA's to get the groundwork that was laid down there. The TV series begins where the second half of the OVA series changed things, after the War of Heroes.

Suffice to say, this has caused endless confusion among viewers. With the TV show starting off in an unexpected place, major characters still alive when they were originally killed in the OVA's and other "changes", many were immediately turned off.

There was a Lodoss RPG produced in Japan; I used to have a page with info on it, and I'll try to dredge that up somewhere.

 

[LordVyreth]

There was a Lodoss RPG produced in Japan; I used to have a page with info on it, and I'll try to dredge that up somewhere.

That seems kind of weird. An RPG based on a manga/anime/novel series based on another RPG? Though I suppose Hackmaster's origins are even stranger.

Does the article cover that stand-alone DVD I mentioned? I think featured a dark elf or half-dark elf of some sort, but that didn't look like Pirotess.

Ah...Pirotess. I don't understand what people see in Deedlit comparatively.

 

[SilentJay]

Does the article cover that stand-alone DVD I mentioned? I think featured a dark elf or half-dark elf of some sort, but that didn't look like Pirotess.

It's Legend of Crystania, and it mostly takes place 200 years after Lodoss War. It's not a truly a stand-alone, as it's a four part series, but the first volume is a stand-alone story. It's about Pirotess, and that Dark Knight (I can't remember his name), and how they travelled to the mainland from Lodoss Island after the events of the war.