Blackmoor in the year 500

[Havard]

IF I WAS TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AS A GAME, I would try to work with Chris Aylott's approach to Elven and Human neighborhoods ("humans are hairless monkeys") once more

Sorry, I have no idea what that means. Google searches reveal Chris Aylott as an obscure RPG designer who has contributed to things like the 3.5E World of Warcraft RPG?

My problem with the several official takes on Blackmoorian "founding" mythology is that they are not very coherent, and that, apparently, people tried to compress things into the relatively small timeframe of a thousand years. That leaves very, very little time for mystery, IMO.

Maybe its the historian me, but calling a thousand years a small timeframe? hock:

Think of it this way. If D20 Blackmoor corresponded to the time of Christopher Colombus, then the War against the Temple of Id would have taken place around 1000 AD while the founding of Thonia would be around 500 AD. Alot of things happened over all those centuries in our real world. There is plenty of room in Blackmoor as well

Also, there is one good thing about incoherence in official material and that is that there is stuff for us to do.

OTOH, all this published stuff is only important since it gives us a common frame of reference. In your games you should not in any way feel obligated to use any of the things published, and definitely not the things that I have written. Unless you like them that is

For example, what about making the Id Gem sort of a stand-in Silmaril? - One could work with that, at least tentatively.

The other main aspect of the game, I would probably try to handle based on what we know from Zimriel (once again, my Blackmoor is 50% inspired in his notes):

Note that the Temple of Id is no churchland, but is actually a cursed and ancient place of terror. Extensive caverns contain prisons, chapels, and monster dens. Above-ground structure: courtyard with small amphitheatre, “several undead superheroes”, great orange jewel on black pedestal. This Jewel is very probably the legendary Jewel of the Sun, which in 996 proved very effective against undead and magical darkness.
Stealing this jewel results in the “Id Monster” chasing the thief. Only the thief can see the monster. The Monster will eat the Jewel (and thief), at which point the monster and jewel return to the Temple, and the thief magically reappears, naked, under the Blackmoor “Troll Bridge” in Blackmoor’s sewage runoff. The Jewel was still there as of 1000.

So, some basic considerations:

Also, what if the Id Gem is the corrupted "Jewel of the Sun"? Perhaps it contains another powerful soul, similar to the Evershard, but, well, smaller? What if it's really the "Id" of something powerful?

My bet would go, just based on the stuff we've been toying with, on the oldest Elves.

Rafe going back to the Zimriel files. I like it

Comparing the Jewel of the Sun to the Silmarils makes sense to me.

Here is my take on the Jewel of the Sun/Jewel of Id:

This is a powerful elven artifact that was used to destroy the Temple of Id. Removing the Jewel permanently from the ruins is difficult, but if done successfully it would allow the evils of the Temple to return to Blackmoor. The Id Monster might be the ghost of the actual Id Monster, but perhaps bound by the Jewel so that the Jewel is not permanently removed.

I have not done much work on the origins/nature of the Jewel, but I like your ideas. My Elder Elves are a little different from yours though in that they aren't actually elves, but rather the race of Oberon and Titania (Sidhe).

Now, since BM has only a tradition that stretches back a thousand years, that pretty boring, but if we borrow from WL lore, like I did for the LFC, then we quickly get to Dragon Kings and Macrabs, and, in short, stuff to toy with.

It is a viable option for sure. Many of the prehistoric Wilderlands elements exist in my campaign too, but I am more liberal with tweaking those things where they do not fit my version of Blackmoor. But that is so great about each of us being able to do what we wish in our own campaigns right?

In any case, how much would such elaborate back histories actually impact a small localized game session?

-Havard