Please do not disturb the exterior decorations...
I (David Ross) "wrote" the gazetteer... in a very, very technical sense. My aim was to clarify what was really the work of Dave Arneson (1970-1987) and, to a much lesser extent, Dave Ritchie (1986-7); I saw my role as an editor. This ZIP has 13 files (12 RTF's, one XLS) of the history and geography of the world's oldest Role-Playing fantasy world. You will still need the DA series in order to play; there are no warez'ed maps or modules here.
Version 1.1 had minor updates to the Egg of Coot and major updates to Blackmoor's evolution as a setting (as best I could reconstruct it). Version 2 was a thorough revision. It acknowledges that the Frisians were Dave Ritchie's invention, and should not be considered canonical. Information from the little-known module Garbage Pits of Despair has been incorporated. The Blackmoor section has been reorganized, and now includes three maps; one of the Comeback Inn region, one of the Blackmoor Castle region, and one of the Ramshead region (an historical footnote). There are also more minor tweaks and clarifications, again, especially to the historical section, but also concerning the TimeLine, Duchy of Ten, the Egg (again), and Thonia.
Here are some addenda you may find interesting, in rough order of canonicity:
| WorldOfBM.gif. | (63 kB). Here are the surroundings of the Northern Marches, based on hints given in the material. Warning: it is a very rough sketch. If you like it, the Geography file in the Gazetteer holds details, references, and more. |
| Glendower. | Organizing Glendower dungeon from the brief notes in the Judges Guild book. |
| Frisia. | By Kristian Kramer and David Ross. This is not canonical, but it is designed to fit with DA1-4. |
| Even Further Adventures. | The game state changes if the PC's don't get involved. The Gazetteer assumes the NPC's of the world take matters into their own hands - here are further speculations, and what it means to your campaign. |
| Mystara.txt. | In October 1998, Demos Sachlas had some interesting ideas on how to reconcile Arneson's real Blackmoor with Mystara's Blackmoor... |
| Mystara2.txt. | ... and Cthulhudrew Theisen disagreed with some of them. (The Blackmoor Reconciliation Question eats up a lot of bandwidth on the Mystara mailing list. I have elected to stand off from it.) |
| Arbus: The White Avenger. | By Demos Sachlas. A description of a holy sword of the Northern Marches, stolen by the Empire. |
Thanks to everyone who commented on the Gazetteer. Above all, thanks to Dave Arneson, for granting me (provisional) permission to leave the Blackmoor Gazetteer here.
This page was given its name on 6 February, 1999. Updated (cosmetically) 6/9/2000. Added Sebastian's link 3/10/2001. Frozen officially 3/17/2004.
Copyright:
All articles are © their respective authors. These articles are made available for private use. Reprinting or uploading for profit is strictly prohibited without the express consent of the author of the work, in which case you'd probably have to appeal to Dave Arneson. AD&D®, D&D®, Dungeons & Dragons®, DM®, Dungeon Master®, TSR®, TSR Hobbies®, World of Greyhawk®, Greyhawk®, are all registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast® (or WotC®). Blackmoor®, I'm not sure about, but it probably belongs to Dave Arneson now. All Rights Reserved.
