The MN Gathering 2025 to take place on Aug 21

 

The Minnesota Gathering is a small meeting or micro convention (their term) where friends of Dave Arneson, original Blackmoor players and other gamers meet up. This can be a nice alternative to the larger gaming conventions and those interested in Blackmoor can probably get a chance to talk more at length with some of those who helped shape the birth of D&D. 

The gaterhing is organized by Kevin McColl and the Castle Blackmoor group. 

This year's TMg is scheduled for August 21st. 

Once more details are revealed, I will report it here.

-Havard

TSR's Skip Williams on the Origin of Pegataurs the Iconic D&D Monster

 

Pegataurs are an iconic creature from the D&D multiverse that is strangely underused. In the World of Mystara they are found in the Known World, the Empire of Alphatia, the City of Serraine and on the Savage Coast. Some are found living among elves or making their lairs in moutain sides, while others lend their services as mercenaries or trainers of Pegasi mounts to ground dwellers. 

 

Part Elf and part Pegasus, these magnificent D&D creatures first appeared in 1986 in the epic adventure Vengeance of Alphaks (M2) for the Classic D&D edition popularly known as BECMI. Pegataurs most recently made an appearance in the latest edition of D&D in the book Dungeons & Dragons: Worlds and Realms (2024) where the the character named Luphandi, a free thinking Pegataur who befriends the legendary Wizard Mordenkainen as they explore the World of Mystara.

Including a Pegataur character in Dungeons & Dragons: Worlds and Realms in that book's chapter on Mystara is perhaps not a coincidence as this legendary setting is where Vengeance of Alphaks was set, like most of the wonderful BECMI product line. It was Jeff Easley who brought the creatures to life in the spectacular painting shown above, gracing the cover of the adventure. 

Skip Williams was kind enough to share with me how the creatures came to be and how he worked with Jeff Easley to bring the creatures to life in the spectacular painting shown above, gracing the cover of the adventure.  

I created pegataurs for the adventure—flying sentries for a flying castle. TSR had me write an art order for the cover. I wrote something along the lines of "ramparts of a floating castle sticking up through clouds with a pegataur (think of a centaur with pegasus wings). Easley took it from there, choosing the composition, color palette, and making a single pegataur archer as the focus.

M2 Vengance of Alphaks continues the saga of Norwold, a region in Mystara fought over by two Empires; Thyatis and Alphatia. Here we follow the story of Alphaks one of the main villains of the Mystara setting as he rises to become a powerful demon. The Demon's main goal is to destroy the Empire of Alphatia.This is not the last time we see Pegataurs in D&D however. In 1989,  famous game designer and author Aaron Allston expanded on the backstory of Pegataurs and their connections to the Empire of Alphatia for the Mystara setting. 

That same year, Pegataurs went from being just a monster to be encountered to also becoming a playable race in PC2 Top Balista by Carl Sargent. This sourcebook for BECMI focused on flying creatures that could be used by players and DMs alike and also explored the Flying City of Serraine that travels across the skies of Mystara. The source book also expanded on the lore by Williams and Allston.

In 1994 Pegataurs appeared in the AD&D 2nd Edition in the AD&D Monstrous Compendium Mystara Appendix by John Nephew. Here we learn more about Pegataurs, their allies such as the Phanatons and their way of life.  

 Pegataur Bibliography

• M2 Vengeance of Alphaks (1986)
• AC9 Creature Catalogue (1986)
• DMR3 Creature Catalogue (1993)
• PC2 Top Balista  (1989)
• Dawn of the Emperors (1989)
• AD&D Trading Card R1 #722 1991
• AD&D 2ND EDITION AD&D Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix.  (1994)
• Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Three  (1996)
• Orc's Head Peninsula Campaign Book
• Dungeons & Dragons: Worlds and Realms (2024)

A big thank you to Skip Williams for answering questions about this race and to the wonderful people of The Piazza D&D fan community who helped with researching Pegataurs in this topic.

Are you a fan of Pegataurs? How would you include Pegataurs in an adventure?

-Havard

DaveCon 2025 Report and DaveCon 2026 Announcement

 

DaveCon 2025 is the third DaveCon organized by Victor Dorso. It took place on April 25-27 this year, as by the original announcement. The convention is no longer exclusively dedicated to Dave Arneson, but rather "all the Daves that helped make D&D great" according to the organisers. However the guests of honor did include several of Dave Arneson's players  including David Wesely, David Megarry, David Wesely, Mike Carr, William J Hoyt and Ross Maker as well as Ken Fletcher and Kevin McColl who worked for Dave Arneson at various points. So I think the convention should still be of interest to the readers of this blog. 

Other guests of honor included  Griff Morgan, Baron DeRopp, Justin Alexander, Bob Worldbuilder, Grace WorldDestroyer, Greg Gillespie, David Johnson and Mark Rein-Haugen.  

During the first DaveCon there was some disagreement between Victor Dorso and the organisers of ArneCon. However, these differences seem to have been set aside and Griff Morgan of ArneCon did attend this year's convention. 

Next year's DaveCon has already been announced for April 24-26, 2026, Bloomington, MN, USA. 

Blackmoor Trademark Now Registered to Estate of Dave Arneson LLC

 

As of March 4th, 2025, the Blackmoor Trademark is listed as Registered to the The Estate of David Arneson LLC. The estate first applied to register the Trademark of Blackmoor back in July 2021, but it seems there is a long and complicated process to move a Trademark from Pending Status to Live. 

It has been listed under the following categories for statement of use:

Toys and Sporting Goods Products Dice games; Role playing games; Tabletop hobby battle games in the nature of battle, war and skirmish games, and fantasy games, and playing equipment sold as a unit therewith.

Paper Goods and Printed Material Role playing game equipment in the nature of printed game book manuals

According to a press release from last year, the Estate of David Arneson LLC is Dave's Daughter Malia Arneson-Weinhagen, her husband Luke and their grandchildren. The same press release made it clear that Chris Graves, producer of the documentary "Secrets of Blackmoor", has been made 

"Authorized Representative and Bridge Troll for the Estate of David Arneson, LLC". 

Note that Mr Graves' associate Griff Morgan who runs the Secrets of Blackmoor account on X/Twitter and elsewhere has made it clear that he is not a spokesperson for the Estate".

At this point, no official statement has been made from the Estate about what this confirmation of the Trademark Registration would mean for the future of Blackmoor.

-Havard

Ernie Gygax Passes Away

 

I was saddened to learn the news that Ernie Gygax, the eldest son of Gary Gygax passed away yesterday. Ernie had been in and out of hospitals for the last few years. Growing up in the Gygax household as his father was developing D&D, he became one of the games' first Play testers. His legacy was memorialised in the game as Tenser. 

My thoughts go to his wife Donna, the Gygax family and friends. 

Rest in Peace.

-Havard

Chaosium 50 Year Anniversary (1975-2025)

 This is not just the 50 year anniversary of the Blackmoor Supplement and with that, Blackmoor in its published form. This also marks the 50th Anniversary of Chaosium. Founded by Greg Stafford in 1975, the company has brought the world a number of games, including legendary RPGs like Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest. 

I have always been an advocate of playing a wide variety of tabletop RPGs. I have played and enjoyed almost every edition of D&D. I have also been lucky enough to play a number of non D&D RPGs. I have to thank my friends for exposing me to many of these games. After discovering D&D, we wanted to try everything we could get our hands on. I still love early edition D&D, but I am happy that I got to try so many other RPGs early on and am still able to play in many of them. I am currently a player in a RuneQuest 5 Campaign in an amazing homebrew setting. My first exposure to RuneQuest was RuneQuest 3 which we had a lot of fun with. One of my early non D&D experiences as a Game Master was running an early ElfQuest campaign. I am not sure I did a very good job, but my friends kept coming back for new games, so I guess I was doing something right. I put some money into the last year's ElfQuest RPG Kickstarter, so I can't wait to get that version in the mail.

I am happy to see Chaosium still going strong. I hope to see lots of fun stuff from this company in the future as well!

-Havard

Happy 2025 - 50 Years of Published Blackmoor!

 

I hope everyone has had nice celebrations for the New Year and are ready for 2025 to begin. 50 years ago, TSR published the second supplement for D&D. This booklet bore the title Blackmoor and was written by D&D Co-Creator Dave Arneson, edited by Tim Kask and included additional material by Steve Marsh, Brian Blume and others. It was based on the campaign Dave Arneson and his friends had been running for many years prior. 

This will be as good a year as any to celebrate our favorite D&D campaign world! I hope the year will be a good one for all readers of this blog.

-Havard