So, we have so far:

60.000 years before the beginning of the Northern calendar. (This is sort of important, because it also places the story outside of the setting lore from Wilderlands of High Fantasy,
which has "Eldar" races colonize the planet about BCCC -40.000. I'd rather not have that because the setting would again, mainly be about the discovery of sci-fi technology,
and the usual "robots vs knights" trope. That's cool, too, but I am looking for something else, and I am most inclined to disregard the WL lore for this experiment.)

Primary races: Homo Sapiens, First Men, Dragonkin, Snakemen, Sair-Aigu, Fey (proto-elves).
Elemental gods, oral magic.

Mining? :)

Ah, I am happy this had a few more answers. :)

Essentially, I am looking for something that CAN work within the given context, but I am also not hellbent on fixing what the original authors did leave open.

For the setting, I think the core question is, which was the first civilization; I think to decide that is pretty arbitrary, actually, because we really have no canonic info. :)

The "first men" perhaps, indeed?


Also, as to flavor, I think this could be one of the rare ocassions when "Howardian" really fits. Anybody know "The Shadow Kingdom", and the other tales about "Kull"?
That is how I personally visualize a stone age setting.

Indeed, a very 'Howardian' approach would be cool. If I remember correctly the First Men were the attempt to make a first man that ended up resembling a humanoid with ape traits, sort of a step between ape and man. Which culture was first might be hard, maybe dragons or another reptilian race so snakemen worshiping old gods?

So, you're lucky, because I got the flu.

So, I read the first book in the "Opening the World" series by Harry Turtledove; run-of-the-mill fantasy, but setting-wise, almost EXACTLY what one would be looking for.

I don't have the time right now to give a deeper review, but this could be something to use as a blueprint for Blackmoor.

I'm not focussing too much on the detailed dates, but I think this setting could mix pretty well with the Burrowers Wars scenario...

In general, I'd expect high presence of feys, trying to "educate" the young humans to respect and live on the land without plundering it, but rather keeping it. I'm sure that you read the Tall Tales etc. so you have a fair idea of how feys would do it, mostly in a fairly subtle way. NEUTRAL influence.
The Burrowers (see all the related threads on this site) will use mostly dreams to influence the men. CAOTIC influence.
I have no idea about who may give a LEGAL influence in this scenario... :oops: do you want 2001 Space Odissey black monolith concept to incarnate in the Black Spire? it may be an option...
(this may be the influence that pushes for technological advancements...)

Possibly the result of these influences is that humans didn't put technological advancements ahead of magic, but they developed alongside...

I have my personal opinion that all other races don't have a strong concept of territory and borders (so all non/semi-humans roam around freely) and that the "borders" concept comes from the Burrowers Wars and it's mostly endorsed by humans / proto-humans (I wrote this in one of Havards Burrowers Wars threads).

I think that fantasy worlds, almost by definition, are NOT evolutionistic. There are jumps ahead and then backwards, more or less direct divine intervetions, etc. No continuous improvement at all.
Blackmoor develops technology, true, but NOT as a result of its own evolution, but mostly by reverse engineering the artifacts found in the City of Gods, that is an extra-terrestrial ship that crash landed "by chance" near Blackmoor. If it landed in the Afrdhi, Blackmoor would have NOT developed technology, of course and if instead of having a spaceship crash landing we'd had an extra-planar lovecraftian being, Blackmoor would develop in a completely different way. After the Rain of Fire, all the Technology is gone and we're back from space travel to burning coal.


I hope that some of this makes at least a little bit of sense for you...

Those are great ideas, man! (...? :) )

Now, what we in Germany call the Gretchen question: Does the Egg of Coot exist in BM's past? Or, for that matter, the Evershard from the LFC?

Because that surely influences the rest of what you wrote; in my game, the Evershard is essentially the Black Monolith from 2001, containing the soul of a draconic god.