Sunday, December 11, 2016

Awesome Fantasy Maps by Thorfinn Tait Cartography

Although we have never met in person, I have known Thorfinn Tait for decades now. He is one of several people from the Mystara fan community that I consider my friends after so many years of talking online about our favorite fantasy setting.



Over the years Thorfinn has developed amazing skills as a fantasy map maker. He started out making fan maps of Mystara, but in recent years he teamed up with D&D designer and former TSR product manager Bruce Heard in order to produce maps for the World of Calidar from Calidar Publishing.

You can get tons of free maps made by Thorfinn Tait Cartography over at http://thorf.co.uk/


Recently Thorfinn also joined Patreon so that you can now support his Calidar Maps through that program. Making maps for small fantasy RPG publishing companies is not something that typically makes you filthy rich, so it would be really cool if you went on to support Thorfinn Tait at Patreon. I hope to see many more maps from Thorfinn in the future so any small amount sent his way will probably help!


-Havard

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Dan Nicholson: The Merchant of Blackmoor


The Merchant of Blackmoor was a character played by Dan Nicholson in Dave Arneson's original campaign. Dan Nicholson was one of the early members of the Midwest Military Simulation Association (MMSA) which was formed in 1964 by Ray Allard and friends. Dave Arneson joined this group when he was in high school and Dan went on to join Dave's Blackmoor game.

Untill recently, Dan's most well known character in the Blackmoor campaign was the Merchant, who would later go on to inspire the Merchant class in Zeigtgeist Games d20 Blackmoor product line. Nicholson was one of the older members of Dave's gaming group which by then had split from the MMSA.

The First Fantasy Campaign documents the game in which Dan Nicholson's Merchant tried to gain control over all the trade in Blackmoor. His organization gradually developed into a kind of mafia-like group. The Great Svenny, Mello the Halfling and the Blue Rider formed a secret organization of their own to try to counter the influence of the Merchant Mafia (FFC p 20). Although it is not mentioned by Dave Arneson, it has recently been revealed that David Megarry's Thief character, was also involved in trying to thwart Nicholson's plans.

The Merchant was apparently not the only character Nicholson played in the Blackmoor Campaign. Yesterday, the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary team revealed a character sheet provided to them by the late Nicholson's widow Helen. It details a Gnome character played by Nicholson in 1975:



It is possible that this Gnome and the Merchant are the same character, but I tend to believe they were two separate characters. This character sheet clearly uses the format of OD&D and looks a bit different from the character sheets used earlier in the campaign before ability scores and other aspects had been finalized. Also, 2000 XP does not seem like all that much if he had been playing the character from the campaigns beginning and all the way up to 1975. I do like that the Gnome character is in possession of gems though. That only seems appropriate for a Gnome character.


Dan Nicholson passed away in 2012 at the age of 72. I don't know much more about him. I do know that he was a computer programmer, working for companies called Coleco and 4D Interractive Vision. If anyone can provide me  with other details about his life and career, that would help make this article even better.


More discussion about this article here.

-Havard

Blackmoor Player Bill Hoyt Shares Campaign Notes in Free PDF

  Bill Hoyt is one of the surviving members of the Blackmoor Bunch, the group that played in Dave's Blackmoor campaign and parttook in o...