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Alright, so, I wasn't taken by surprise by anything we saw in this chapter of Fort Forinthry's storyline at all - as I had suggested it was going to be the quest that runs parallel to Old School RuneScape's 'Dragon Slayer II' quest in so much as it would be the quest that would establish Vorkath as a forefront entity in RuneScape's lore. It also retained the same creator, Zorgoth the Dragonkin, and the same purpose for creation, which was to eradicate humanity. Vorkath's meaning - "failure" - has now been established in RS3 as well.

There was a noticeable focus on the fort staff almost as a whole on this quest.

Aster was given a chance to show they were struggling with grieving the death of their close sister, Bianca - and there was a touching letter in which Ellamaria (E.R. - Ellamaria Remanis) reveals the location of Bianca's burial site in secret so that Aster is given the opportunity to grieve properly. Aster is the one who supplies the headstone. Both people had genuine relationships with Bianca.

Bill was given a semblance of backstory himself, being the cowardly son of a brave warrior father who didn't appreciate Bill's craftsmanship as much as he should have.

Ellamaria... kind of felt like an afterthought in surprising comparison. It did seem like she may have been death flagged (or as someone I know around here may claim, her husband may have been death flagged) in her private meeting in the Jolly Boar.

Before moving on to prognostication of the future, even with noticeable dialogue and interaction from grander past quest achievements, this quest has a strong lean on the idea that our Fort is significant. That's cool.

It looks like said Fort will be where we encounter Zemo/Vorky.

That's literally what I said above - the points around Vorkath, meaning the dragon itself, the island on which it is found, and its creation and historical purpose - are the parts where the lore from OSRS is applicable.

Yes, it's more likely we are fighting Vorkath elsewhere. I completed the quest and read the dialogue and saw the splash screens.

Comparing this situation to Zuk is silly because Vorkath is an example where Old School RuneScape goes out of their way to establish actual lore for one of the two characters, whereas they don't really put much of anything behind Zuk. Zuk just kind of exists and is imprisoned and somehow has control of the feral TzHaar that inhabit the Inferno. For all we know, Old School's account on Zuk could be the same as RS3's - with the entity responsible for imprisoning Zuk having not yet been revealed to be Bandos (and of course, subsequent events like introduction to the Fight Kiln and the Sixth Age still have yet to occur.)

Ancient Awakening doesn't change Vorkath's lore at all here (outside of the dragon having not yet been reanimated) - and we know this because Holo-Zorgoth tells us all of the past details that are found in Dragon Slayer II regarding that creature.

Now, Aster seems to suggest that Zorgoth is long gone in Ancient Awakening. In Dragon Slayer, Zorgoth very much was still alive. That -most definitely- is a departure from DS2, but it makes sense because we're taking a necromantic route and merging the story into a new Misthalin-centered direction.

Again, I agree with the above sentiment

...but to compare historical data (such as Vorkath's origin story) to an event that happens DURING the player's adventures like OSRS' Bob the Cat losing his ninth life is apples to oranges. Throughout many of both games' lores, characters tend to have the same inspired past, and storylines often (but not always) have the same direction and beats. Yes - that doesn't mean the games must have the same outcomes - but its a very neat thing to see players who care about these NPCs not have to suspend logic to be able to talk about the NPC differently depending on which game is being discussed. You should be able to use knowledge about the existing character in one universe to understand the same character in another. That's how to do cameos the right way.

I'm not suggesting Aster knows for certain that Zorgoth is dead, but their reaction to the Archivist's introduction (as a database that was fashioned in Zorgoth's image) suggests that they believe Zorgoth is dead. If that is so - that's worth pointing out because Zorgoth played a similar role to Zemouregal in OSRS' encounter with Vorkath as a very much still-alive Dragonkin.

Completely disagree with you on Zorgoth being meaningless in either game. Zorgoth must exist for Vorkath to exist, and RS3 respected that enough to at least give him representation. OSRS flat out made Zorgoth the big bad of the questline. That's a whole lot more than nothing.