HWR2 Kingdom of Nithia - Alternate Cover

TSR often made alternate covers for their game supplements as part of pre production. Many times, these were also used in early advertising. Orcs of Thar and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia are a couple of known examples. DA5 City of Blackmoor had a cover produced for it as well, but if the module had ever been releaset it is pretty certain that it would have gotten a different cover illustration than the one they used in marketing which was borrowed from a Dragonlance product.

Here's another example, the Kingdom of Nithia which was part of the Hollow World series for Mystara. The cover to the right was the one they ended up using, but it is interesting to see the cover on the right having a different color hue and only a single statue. I almost like the idea of using this one for a fan created HW sourcebook for Hutaaka.

What do you guys think of the alternate cover?

-Havard

Want to Play Blackmoor With An Original Player?

Now is your chance. A group who call themselves the United Geeks of Gaming are
hosting an event in Minnesota:

"A special event at the Source Comics and Games. Blackmoor game, the game that started it all! Guest Game Master Robert Meyer hosting a game that is the first and longest running Fantasy RPG! Bring pencil, paper, and 2 six sided dice! 🎲 United Geeks of Gaming has a day for role playing games! "

Robert Meyer played Robert the Bald, a powerful Wizard in Dave Arneson's campaign, and has DMed several Blackmoor games for the original group since Dave passed away. The Source is the gaming store where Dave ran many of his games.

Learn more about this event here!



-Havard

Frank Mentzer launches Empyrea Kickstarter

Frank Mentzer, TSR alumni and creator of the D&D Red Box and the rest of the BECMI series of D&D, has been working to prepare his own game world for commercial sale for a long time. Previously this setting has been referred to as Aquaria, but the setting title has now been officially announced as Empyrea, named after the greatest empire of the continent of Aquaria.

I am a big fan of BECMI D&D and Frank Mentzer's game design. I am also excited to learn of the design team that Frank has brought with him:


Frank Mentzer, Darlene,Ted Fauster, Tim Beach,  Steven Winter, Anne K. Brown, Peter Bradley, Don Higgins, Mark Quire, Alyssa Faden, Anna Meyer, Christopher Wiese, Kevin “Doc” Wilson , David "Zeb" Cook, Ed Greenwood, Allen Hammack, Tracy Hickman, Harold Johnson, Tim Kask, Len "Leomund" Lakofka, Steve Marsh, Douglas Niles, James M. Ward , “Skip” Williams, Margaret Weis, Clyde Caldwell, Liz Danforth, Jeff Dee Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Jennell Jaquays “Diesel” LaForce, Erol Otus, Stephen D. Sullivan

Check out the Kickstarter for Emyprea here

Also, if you want to learn more about Empyrea, visit the Empyrea/Aquaria forum at The Piazza, where you can ask Frank questions about this project and other things related to gaming.

-Havard

Blackmoor MMRPG Season 4 Debut!

Season 4!

The first adventure episode of Blackmoor the MMRPG Season 4 has been released. This is part of Dave Arneson Day 2017 and is beeing released at The Comeback Inn. Season 4 was played at conventions back when Zeitgeist Games were still doing their d20 Blackmoor Line, but these episodes never made it to release on their website.

Get the Episode Here.

-Havard

Dave Arneson Game Day 2017 is Today!

"Ribbit!"

Today is a great day for gaming! On October 1st 1947, Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons was born. Do we need more excuses to get together with friends and roll some dice? Dave Arneson loved gaming all his life. He was the one who first combined the roleplaying techniques he had learned from his friend Dave Wesely with a fantasy environment. Dave also developed the dungeon exploration model and allowed his players to create characters who would advance in abilities as the campaign went along. In 1972 he went down to visit Gary Gygax because Dave wanted to show Gary the game he called Blackmoor. The two of them set down to create Dungeons & Dragons!

Last year was an incredible year for Dave Arneson Day. This year we also have many things in store for you. Many people are reporting that they will be running games today. Others are posting blog articles or posting on the different forums where Blackmoor and Dave Arneson are being discussed. There is a Renessance Fair happening not to far from Dave Arneson's home in Minnesota today and we hope they might make some announcement regarding the day. Over at the Comeback Inn, Season 4 of the MMRPG (Free D&D adventures!) is about to be released.

Get Your Updates here:

Havard's Blackmoor Blog

Dave Arneson Game Day 2017 Facebook Event

Comeback Inn Dave Arneson Game DayThread 

Piazza Dave Arneson Game Day Thread

-Havard

Preparing for Dave Arneson Game Day October 1st 2017

October 1st is Dave Arneson's birthday and like always it keeps sneaking up on us! We haven't forgotten about it though, and expect lots of Blackmoor, Dave Arneson and D&D related material to appear in the days leading up to this weekend!

Dave Arneson Game Day isn't just about the hard core Dave Arneson fans though. Everyone who loves D&D and Roleplaying can take part. Some people run games, others post articles or share projects they are working on etc.

If you want to take a look at what happened for Dave Arneson Game Day last year, then take a look at this thread from The Comeback Inn.

Look out for Dave Arneson Game Day related material at The Comeback Inn, The Piazza, this blog and other sites. If you have a site you want to link to Dave Arneson Day, let me know and we can add you to the list this time as well!

More on this in the coming days!

Dave Arneson Game Day 2017 Facebook Event

Comeback Inn Dave Arneson Game Day Announcement Thread 
Piazza Dave Arneson Game Day Thread


-Havard

500 Likes!

My blog just got 500 Likes on Facebook. Thank you very much! :)



Thank you everyone who keep coming back to check out my articles. Thank you for the comments and feedback! This is what makes doing something like this meaningful :)


-Havard

Chainmail Co-Creator Jeff Perren 70 years today!

Today is a good time to honor another important figure in the history of our hobby. Jeff Perren turns 70 years old today. He was a member of the Lake Geneva Tactical Association (LGTSA) which was the group who used to meet regularly in Gary Gygax' basement for gaming. Among gamers today, Jeff Perren is best known as the Co-Creator of Chainmail. The original version of the ruleset was distributed in the Domesday Book, which many of my readers will know was the fanzine for the Castles & Crusades Society.

Edit: Frank Mentzer revealed the following on the origins on the original edition of Chainmail:

"I believe that Jeff was the sole Compiler/Author of Chainmail (the version for the club, gathering various good ideas and massaging them into coherence). For publication, Gary had to give it more work. I also believe this fact is vastly overlooked."

The original version of the ruleset was distributed in 1970, while Guidon Games published their 1st edition in 1971. TSR published their first version (3rd edition) in 1975 (Acaeum).

For a while, many incorrectly assumed that Blackmoor was simply a variant of the Chainmail game, but although I think that most people these days accept that that is just a myth, gaming historians and fans still debate to what extent Chainmail did influence the two creators of Dungeons & Dragons. My friend DHBoggs has written som excellent articles about this on his blog here.

No matter where you land on those debates, I think we should all be able to recognize that Chainmail was an important milestone in the development of our hobby and we can be thankful for Jeff Perren's contributions. In this short interview, Perren humbly admits that he recieved no royalties for Chainmail, but that he is happy that some of the things he created are still loved. The World of Greyhawk also has a region, Perrenland, that is named after him.

Happy birthday Jeff!



***





Note: Image taken from this blog
Note: Thanks to author Matt Forbeck for making me aware of the date of Mr Perren's Birthday.

More discussion of this topic at The Comeback Inn


-Havard

Comeback Inn Forum down for maintenance - Now Back

The Comeback Inn forum for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is currently down. We have been seeing some technical glitches recently and have had to take this step to try to figure out how to fix these problems. No data has been lost in this process and we hope to have the forum back up again as soon as possible.

The accompanying website, the Blackmoor Archives are still available. That site has links to other places you can reach fellow Blackmoor fans while we wait for this to be sorted out.

Stay tuned for more information!

Sorry for the inconvenience. Our gnome alchemists are working as hard as they can to get the site back up as soon as possible.

EDIT: The site is Back Up Again! Thanks for your patience! :)




-Havard

RIP Stephen Lee Lortz 1949-2017

I just learned via Jennell Jaquays that Stephen Lortz (September 7, 1949 - April 23, 2017) passed away yesterday. Stephen Lortz was another of Dave Arneson's original players. In the Blackmoor campaign, Lortz played the Dwarf who became the Regent of the Mines after Uberstar Khazakhum.

"I met him when we hired Arneson's company as temporary consultants to get us through the initial design documentation crunch on Colecovision." Jaquays recalls.

"Steven was an artist, miniature sculptor, and designer who was part of the early Runequest gaming community and worked for Dave Arneson's company for several years. "

Lortz the Dwarf, from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor RPG

Steve Lortz also designed a miniatures games such as Quactica, Perilous Encounters (Chaosium in 1978) and  and contributed to various other games such as Star Rover. Here's an overview of miniatures companies Lortz has done sculpting for.

I posted some more details and relevant links here:



-Havard

Blackmoor Town Maps by Dave Arneson

Jeffery Quinn has been working on making new versions of various Blackmoor maps  on twitch.tv lately. Today he has been working on a map of Blackmoor Town. The best known map of Blackmoor Town was the one from the First Fantasy Campaign:

Years earlier, in the Castles & Crusades Society's Newsletter (The Domesday Book #13), Dave Arneson provided an earlier version of the the map:

I now present an even older map of Blackmoor Town. It is pretty similar to the one above, but with no labels and a few subtle differences.

Let me know if you enjoy these maps and if there are details in them that differ and that I might not have noticed yet!

-Havard