Beyond This Point...

I got this from a friend on Facebook. My first association was Skandaharian explorers on their way to the mythical Janivarsland. There is always a Blackmoor connection if you know where to look! :) Looks like the Skandaharians got a bit more than they were hoping for this time...


-Havard

Outlander (2008)

I finally got around to watching this film. The reason why I waited so long before watching it was mostly that I expected it to suck. A guy from a space ship crashes in Norway in the Viking Age? Can this concept produce a high quality movie? Of course not. Then again, it is cheesy, and I do love cheese. And to be honest, the movie was a lot better than expected. What does this have to do with Blackmoor? Look at it! This is exactly what the Blackmoor movie should be like! As my friend Rafael once put it, the story of Blackmoor is at its core the story of fantasy world where a space ship crashes. Although Outlander doesn't have elves or dwarves, it comes fairly close.

One thing that drew me to this movie is that it is set in Norway. Being Norwegian, I am a sucker for any reference to my country in International Media, however bad it might be. Secondly, I love the idea of Viking movies, even though most of the ones actually made arent all that good.

Outlander does a pretty good job of potraying the Vikings, even though there's no sign of the produces actually being interested in exploring the deeper tradtitions and customs of the norsemen. Still, the Viking village looks fairly historically correct. The film makes one mistake, that I believe many Blackmoor campaigns also risk making. If you are going to introduce a sci fi element into all of this, make damn sure you use it! So they have access to a, granted submerged, spaceship. What do they do with it? Forge the metal into better swords! Whatever happened to those laser rifles? Were they ruined by water? What kind of crappy sci fi world is that? How awesome would it not have been to see the entire band of Vikings, armed with laser rifles, going up against the Dragon-like aliens? Cheesy as heck, but once you have Vikings and a Space Ship, there is no way around that. Might as well take it all the way, eh?

I think this is one reason why the science fantasy elements in many Blackmoor campaigns are left alone, and wisely so. If you introduce, then you should be prepared to have them leave a mark on the campaign, rather than just have the space ship be a kind of side trek. David Ritchie made a good decision in this respect. He postulated that the discovery of the FSS Beagle would eventually completely change the face of Blackmoor. This is one of the most interesting themes of the setting in my opinion.

Back to the movie Outlander, I found it quite enjoyable. It has an interesting story and throws in alot of elements that dont usually mash well, but still manages to pull it off. And flaws aside, it is probably the best Hollywood portrayal of my ancestors since Kirk Douglas' The Vikings (1958).






-Havard

Denizens of the Black Sea

The Black Sea is the sea to the north of Blackmoor. Until about a century ago, it was merely a great lake surrounded by land on all sides, and connected to the Skandaharian Sea to the north by the enormous Firefrost Canal. In the years that followed, the land began to change. The Black Sea grew as some of the lands surrounding it began to sink, creating disastrous floods across the northern Redwood. Unknown to all at the time, this was the Egg of Coot preparing for its ascension to the surface. As the realm of the Egg rose from the Sea, other lands around the Black Sea began to sink, wrecking havoc in the lands of humans and elves. This altering of the landscape caused the Black Sea to join with the Great Ocean (North Sea), changing the water in the Black Sea from fresh water to brackish water.

The Sar-Aigu
The oldest known civilization to have existed beneath the water of the Black Sea was the race of the Sar-Aigu. These mysterious Sea Devils share their origin with that of the Temple of the Frog, but soon found their way from the swamps and into the Black Sea. Eventually they gained the courage to rise from beneath the waves and build their stronghold on land, on the peninsula which would later be the site of Castle Blackmoor. They remained there until driven back into the sea by a greater evil. They were never heard from again, though they may still be lurking down there in the deep.

Merfolk
The Black Sea is also home to other intelligent life. The Merfolk of the Black Sea are said to have a civilization which “rivals that of humans” (Supplement II). They use Giant Seahorses (Hippocampi) as mounts and their warriors favor the trident.  Rumours speak of great Merfolk cities on the bottom of the sea. They maintain regular underwater communities where schools of fish are kept penned in with nets for food. Dolphins are allies of the Merfolk and the two races often work together.

It is difficult to say how the Egg’s devastating alteration of the seas affected the Merfolk. They seem to have been able to adapt from living in a fresh water environment to living in a saltier one.  The joining of the Black Sea and the North Sea allowed more clans of Skandaharians to get access to the Black Sea and the Merfolk quickly learned of the ruthlessness of the Northmen (See DA4 for details). Some speculate that it was in fact the Merfolk who accidentally awakened the Egg of Coot from its long slumber.

Sea Monsters
Both the Black Sea and the rivers that run through the Dismal Swamp are filled with various Sea Monsters. Many of these are believed to be spawned by the Egg of Coot. This is true in the case of the dreaded Sea Serpents known as Naliseth whose blood can turn drowning men into zombie like creatures. The Egg of Coot has used Sea Monsters in its attacks on Blackmoor, something that has proved to be quite successful against Blackmoor’s navy (See the FFC)

More ideas for underwater adventures in the Black Sea can be found here.








-Havard