Northern Marches Kickstarter from Robert S. Conley (Funded)

 Game designer Robert S. Conley just launched a new Kickstarter called Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches and it has already reached its funding goal. Rob is a long time Blackmoor fan and I first got in contact with him when he was doing an incredible series of articles on his Bat in the Attic Blog where he analysed Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign. Furthernmore, Rob has always been supportive of my work. This post is not sponsored (as is nothing on this blog), but rather I am doing this because I believe in what Rob is doing.

He later released the Blackmarsh setting which while its clearly Rob's own original creation, bears heavy inspiration from the sources that he loves and admires from the 1970s era D&D. The new Northern Marches Kickstarter promises to be an expansion on Blackmarsh. Again, we will get to see amazing hex maps and interesting locations to explore. 

The Living Sandbox concept also sounds interesting with techniques that promise to create a world that feels lived in. I am curious to learn more about this.

Check out the Kickstarter.

-Havard

"Across Black Moors" is a Blackmoor inspired adventure by Carlos Lising of CASL entertainment

I recently recieved news of this new adventure inspired by Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. It is written by Carlos Lising of CASL entertainment. The module is announced as the official module of DaveCon, a convention to commemorate Dave Arneson's legacy next month and will presumably be sold or given out to attendees of the convention. The convention has drawn some criticism for not involving Dave Arneson's family, but has been described as a passion project of its founder Victor Dorso.

 

"DC1 Compliant with OSRIC. 

Dungeon Module DC1 Across Black Moors. By carlos a.lising. An adventure for characters levels 3-5

Long has the bizarre and potent entity known as Orrg of Oot held sway over the Black Moors, controlling the common folk of the land beneath the weighty chains of thralldom and a silent, pervasive terror. Despite its fearsome power, however, an opportunity to fight back against this alien foe has made itself known. Will your heroes strike a blow for freedom on behalf of the Black Moors - or will the Oorg of Oot continue its reign of tyranny over the land forevermore?

This module was the official adventure from DaveCon 2022. It contains a challenging scenario and eight pre-rolled, playtested tournament characters. DC1 is a complete adventure in and of itself and may thus be used for competition among players (pr groups of players) or as a non-scored adventure included in the cnotext of an ongoing game. Also included are referees's maps, notes, encounter descriptions for players, and a background scenario allowing the module to be easily placed withing a pre-existing campaign."

The cover blurb quoted above is of great interest to me. The villain's name is spelled Orrg of Oot and Oorg of Ooot in the same paragraph, but it is obvious that it is a nod to the alternate names given to the Egg of Coot in Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign, where the names  Ogg of Ot and Orrg er Druig were presented as two aliases of this legendary Blackmoor villain. The description of the Black Moors as being ruled by this being suggests that the adventure takes place before Blackmoor was liberated by the elves and long before the DA modules or the ZGG D20 version of Blackmoor. My immediate thought is that the module will be harder to reconcile with the Greyhawk version of Blackmoor, but the blurb does say it can be easily integrated into any pre-existing campaign.

Across the Black Moors is not the first gaming product to be created as a tribute to the legacy of Dave Arneson of course. We also have Dragons at Dawn and Champions of Zed both by DH Boggs, Rob S Conley's Blackmarsh well as the excellent campaigns and sourcebooks organized at the Comeback Inn Forum. Greg Svenson The Lost Dungeons of Tonnisborg feels like its  more than a tribute, but I wanted to mention it anyway. More on that later. 

What other Dave Arneson inspired games may we see in the future?

Did I forget anything? Please let me know in the comments!

-Havard

Blackmarsh is out!

If you haven't done so already, check out Rob Conley's Blackmarsh Setting! I mentioned this project a few weeks ago, and now you can get it too. You can read a review of it over at Zombiecowboy's Gameblog. Conley also has an interesting article about how Blackmarsh was published on his Bat in the Attic Blog. An interesting read if you are thinking about getting your own old school material published. Rob has done some great things in the past, like the excellent Points of Light setting, so give Blackmarsh a chance!





-Havard

Rob S. Conley's Blackmarsh Setting

Blackmarsh Cover

According to Rob S. Conley's excellent blog, the Blackmarsh Setting is ready to be released through the Print on Demand company Lightning Source in about a week or so. Blackmoor fans will find many similarities between this setting and Arneson's world. The map for it was created through a process believed to be the same as what Arneson did when coming up with his map for Blackmoor. However, the author is quick to point out that:

"Blackmarsh is a homage to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. But it is not a clone. The elements that it shares are; drawn from a map of holland, has a castle with a dungeon underneath where access is controlled by the elves, an elven forest, vikings roaming around, and there is a larger kingdom to the southeast. Beyond that background, the locales and details are unique to the Blackmarsh setting."

In additon to these elements, Blackmarsh also has the Mountain that Fell, a meteorite that fell from the sky, creating the Smoking Bay, a seeming parallell to the crashed spaceship of Blackmoor.  Conley has previously suggested that the Blackmarsh Setting could be connected to his other projects of the Southlands (From the Points of Light) and the Wild North (published in Fight On #3), both also having some connection to Blackmoor.

Castle Blackmarsh

With Code Monkey Press's Shaerdreath Setting and Dolmen Creative's Destiny6 game running into pre-production problems, could Blackmarsh be the first Arneson Tribute setting to actually get published? still, there is a fine line between homage and IP violation, and hopefully all involved in these projects will be careful.




-Havard

Inception (2010), Dreams and Blackmoor

I was watching the movie Inception (2010) the other day and really liked it. Not only did I like the action scenes, but I was fascinated by the concept of shared dreaming and delving deeper into someone's subconcious. Rob S Conley wrote a small review of the movie here.

Dragonsfoot poster Kveldulf made the following suggestions of how to adapt some of these ideas to D&D

On a side note, lots of ideas in there for both planar travel (transfer the film's idea of how things work in dream states to, say, astral travel and what happens when the silver cord is damaged or cut) and psionic combat (dreamer's subconscious projections taking on outside dreamers who intrude, and a few other ideas). 

In the Last Fantasy Campaign, we have been venturing through the Dreamscape lately as well. The characters have been visiting King Uther's subconcious in search of a way to prevent the destruction of Blackmoor and a way to get back at the Egg of Coot. I like how our DM, Rafael used this as a way to incorporate some of the more bizarre elements from Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor Campaign. We have now seemingly at last escaped the Dreamscape, so now we shall see what the real world might bring us of dangers...


Illustration: Gustave Doré's illustrations from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.









-Havard

Science Fantasy

Back when Arneson ran his games, notions of the genres of science fiction and fantasy had not become segmented as they are today. In literature spaceships and aliens would often appear in fantasy tales. This made it easier for Arneson to experiment more with the genre in his Blackmoor games, experimentation which is probably one of the things that made Blackmoor different from many later D&D settings. In his latest blog entry, Robert S Conley identifies Science Fantasy as one of the growing trends of the Old School renaissance.

The best known example of Science Fantasy in Blackmoor is of course the City of the Gods, but already in Supplement II, the Temple of the Frog features aliens, laser weapons and other technology. All of this was apparent in Arneson's early games as well. Empire of the Petal Throne creator Professor MAR Barker had connections with Arneson (whether the professor played in Blackmoor is yet to be confirmed) and may have influenced eachothers creations in many ways, including the science fiction element found in both Blackmoor and Tekumel. According to Greg Svenson, the science fiction element of the game dated back to its earliest days:

"...several of the initial players were playing 20th C types who were transplanted into the Blackmoor world (which according to Wesley and Maker was before my first dungeon adventure), so the Sci Fi link was there from the beginning."

 I wonder if the lack of emphasis on science fantasy in the D20 Blackmoor line might not have been an opportunity missed. It would have clearly defined Blackmoor in a yet to be explored niche. On the other hand, many still feel uncomfortable with combining these two genres.






-Havard

Supplement VI: The Majestic Wilderlands

It's been all over the blogosphere these last few days, but I wanted to mention it as well. Written by Robert S. Conley, this supplement brings the Wilderlands to the Swords and Wizardry system. As Moritz mentions in his blog, it should be easy to convert to any pre-D20 D&D edition. Blackmoor first saw print as Supplement II for OD&D. Having The Majestic Wilderlands be marked as Supplement VI makes for a nice connection between the two worlds. The connection between Blackmoor and the Wilderlands goes back to the First Fantasy Campaign in which Blackmoor was linked with Judges Guild's house setting through the Valley of the Ancients.


Edit: Conley has started a discussion of this product here.

Havard

The Piazza Phenomenon

In May 2008, someone at Wizards of the Coast decided they wanted to reorganize their forums. An unfortunate consequence of this was the decision to merge all of the "Other Worlds" forums, that is forums dedicated to settings no longer supported by WotC. Some of these forums were quite dead, but several including Dark Sun, Dragonlance and Mystara were highly active. Others, like the Spelljammer Forum had their small group of loyal fans. The forums were focal points for fan communities of varying sizes. A merger of the forums would result in everything being thrown into one big pot, it would be difficult to find topics you were interested in etc etc. Furthermore, the fans were not warned of this, but a few days in advance and there was seemingly no way of reversing the process either. Frustration lead to action. Fans of different settings, all now found themselves without a "home". Joining forces, these fans set up a forum of their own, which they named The Piazza.

There were other D&D fan forums out there, most dedicated to one setting or to specific editions of D&D. The Piazza's focus was on multiple settings independent of preferred ruleset. It was a huge success! Roughly a year and a half later, the community now has over 500 members and extremely active forums. Moreover, the site is characterized by a highly friendly atmosphere. This might be surprising since the group might have reason to feel bitter about their treatment by WotC. However, the focus has not been complaining about the past, but rather about building somthing new. Lately, the forum has also attracted several prominent game designers, such as Monte Cook, Tim Beach, Colin McComb, Allen Varney, Trampas Whiteman, Andrew Steven Harris, James Mishler, Geoff Gander, Robert S Conley, Aaron Infante-Levy, Adam Miller and others.

In May 2009, Ashtagon, The Piazza's highly dedicated webmaster, made the Blackmoor forum (which had started out as a subforum for Mystara and Greyhawk) into a fully independent forum alongside that of the other worlds. At this point, almost 700 posts have been made in the Blackmoor forum alone. If you havent done so already, go and check it out! :)










Havard