http://wayfarer.myfreeforum.org/viewtop ... f=40&t=160

Havard:

One of my old favorite topics for any setting!

Has anyone done anything with the various Churches and Temples of Blackmoor?

How does the Thonian Church look upon the Deities of the North for instance?

Havard

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Gsvenson:

I am not sure. Mike Carr played the Bishop of Blackmoor in the original campaign. There was only one church/temple then, so I suppose that we were monotheistic at that time. He had a cute name for the church, but I don't recall what it was, the Church of the Facts of Life or something like that. I can't really answer for the current version of the setting.

_________________
Greg Svenson


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Havard:
Ah, I remember reading something about this in the writeup for Bishop Carr in the FFC. It was a pretty funny writeup by the way.

My impression is that demihumans have their own churches. As do the Afridhi, the Skandaharians, the Froglin and the Peshwa. The Church of Thonia is probably the main religion both in the Empire and in Blackmoor as well as the Duchy of Ten. Not sure what the Duchy of the Peaks believe in other than their own pleasures.

I like the idea of the main religion being sort of Monotheistic. I'm thinking the different Deities could be more like saints or Aspects to live by rather than different Gods as such. This also fits well with the BECMI D&D rules where high level characters can become Immortals and have clerics getting spells from them.

Havard
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Rafael:
Was that Mike Carr the same person that was later a high-rank employee at TSR and the author of Dawn Patrol? :mymy:

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Gsvenson:
Yes, that's him. And "Dawn Patrol" was a redo of "Fight in the Skies" by Guidon Games. He also contributed to "Don't Give Up the Ship" with Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, if I remember correctly. I last saw him in 1993 when I was on a business trip to Chicago, where he is a commodities trader. He was living just across the border in Wisconsin at the time.


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Rafael:
I hope he's well. A friend of mine was a huge Dawn Patrol fan back in the day.

As to the original topic, IMC the human population of Blackmoor is basically monotheistic and worships only Odin (yeah, Odin). The church pof Blackmoor is the only real centre of worship, next to Fairfield Abbey.

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-Havard

http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.p ... opic&t=441

Havard:
Over at the Pied Piper forum, someone expressed interest in seeing an rpg based on Dave Arneson's pre-Gygaxian way of gaming. Has ZGG considered publishing their own RPG system based on Arneson's old rules?

Would it be even theoretically possible to publish Blackmoor for such a system, or does the WotC lisence agreement require all BM supplements to be for the D20 system?

Havard

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Falconer:
While we're waiting for a more-or-less official answer to that question, let me ask everyone else this:

Has anyone tried to recreate the original Arneson-style D&D using only Chainmail + FFC? Maybe filling in some holes with Adventures in Fantasy and OD&D and Blackmoor (Supplement II)?

I've experimented with adding a few FFC rules to my Gygaxian game, but I'd be interested in going full-out Arnesonian. There are some very interesting ideas, there. Regards.

_________________
Michael Falconer - http://ulmo.mux.net
"Because by fate even the gods are cast down, weep ye all with me."
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Havard:

I don't have Chainmail, but it sounds interesting. What is the core mechanic in Chainmail, if any?

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Falconer:
Well, Chainmail is essentially a "Medieval Miniatures" game for pitting armies against each other, but it has two very special additions: "Man-to-Man Combat" rules and the "Fantasy Supplement." Between these two aspects you essentially can play a sort of proto-D&D, missing most significantly the dungeon concept and character advancement, though it would take little work to add these if desired.

The "Fantasy Supplement" includes many of the spells (phantasmal forces, darkness, wizard light, detection, concealment, conjuration of an elemental, moving terrain, protection from evil, levitate, slowness, haste, polymorph, confusion, hallucinatory terrain, cloudkill, and anti-magic shell) and monsters (sprite, pixie, goblin, kobold, fairy, orc, wraith, lycanthrope, ogre, true troll, giant, ent, dragon--red, blue, white, black, green, and purple--, roc, wyvern, griffon, air elemental, djinn, earth elemental, fire elemental, efreet, water elemental, basilisk, chimera, giant spider, giant wolf, dire wolf, wight, and ghoul) that will make their way into D&D.

Here are also introduced Heroes (takes four "kills" to kill them) and Super Heroes (takes eight "kills" to kill them)--which in D&D will become fourth level and eighth level Fighters. Then there are Wizards (including Sorcerors at -1, Warlocks at -2, Magicians at -3, Seers at -4--compare with D&D Magic-User level titles). So already you have the two main D&D classes. And of course there are also Hobbits, Dwarves/Gnomes, and Elves to round out the lawful races (actually, Elves are neutral, and heroes and wizards can be lawful or chaotic).

The dice used are d6's (no "funny dice"). There's a "Man-to-Man Melee Table" where basically depending on the attacker's weapon and the defender's armor you're given a number you have to roll on 2d6 in order to score a "kill" (though as we've seen it may take multiple kills, so kills may be thought of as D&D "hits" where all hits score 1 point). A magical sword gives allows you to roll 3d6!

So a lot of the seemingly D&D references in FFC are really just to Chainmail. D&D also assumed you had Chainmail and refers back to it. Regards.

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Finarvyn:
I would love to give this a try, but a couple thoughts come to mind:
1. FFC is pretty confusing in places, such as magic system and whatnot. While there are some cool ideas therin, it's really hard to determine what Dave actually did for many of the rules.
2. AiF is also an interesting game, and I always assumed it was the game that Dave wanted D&D to become, but it doesn't seem to fit my concept of the style of the original campaign rules. I'm not entirely certain what I expected, but AiF is very formula-driven and more complex than I think the early campaigns must have been, so I'm not sure how much could be plucked from this source.
3. Chainmail seems to be the best bet here because it's not too complex and seems to use similar concepts to those mentioned in FFC.

If you have some ideas, I'd love to give them a try!

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-Havard

http://wayfarer.myfreeforum.org/ZGG_lin ... out50.html

Havard:
How many people have bought any of the books from the ZGG Blackmoor D20 line? What is the general opinion of those books? Which do people think are the best etc?

Havard

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Rafael:
I so far own all the books of ZGG line, with *The Redwood Scar* being my high favourite, followed DoCB. :lol:

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Plaag:
I own them all except player guide..The Redwood Scar module was good, but Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor was the worst. I love Blackmoor, so I'm hoping the Temple of the Frog will not disappoint, otherwise I think I'll only buy other books that come later if I can find them cheap.

ShaneG.
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Rafael:

DoCB made a very unready impression to me. I liked the dungeon a lot, and it was fun to read through,

but I felt that it would have needed some more work on it.

However, for me personally, the best megadungeon released for 3e.

Now, I liked Caverns of Thracia and RttToEE as well, so maybe it's just me and my wicked personal tastes... :lol:

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Finarvyn:
I own all of the Zeitgeist BM products.

1. The fact that they are 3E based taints them somewhat. Not to slam 3E, but since that game system wasn't around in the 1960's and 1970's this means that certain parts of each book had to be created and tweaked just to fit these rules. In other words, they're not pure BM anymore.

2. I agree that Dungeons seems hurried. I have no idea why it was felt that 20 levels of a dungeon were needed; the First Fantasy Campaign book of the 1970's had ten levels and I would rather have seen those levels explained better rather than adding another ten levels.

I will continue to support Blackmoor by buying the new products, but I would rather see something compatible with C&C or OD&D and with a more "old school" feel. What I would like to see is a tidied up First Fantasy Campaign type book of Dave's original campaign notes and such, not a lot of new stuff recently developed.

Just my two cents.

_________________
Fianrvyn
Warden of Blackmoor
Earl of Stone Creek, C&C Society
D&D Player Since 1975

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Rafael:
I am pretty curious what ZGG is up to next - for, if their books again receive such harsh critiques as they did last autumn, that would be a mess... ad3:
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Finarvyn:
I also wonder what Zeitgeist is up to next. Using the FFC and OD&D Supplement II as our general guide, they seem to have developed most of the most "iconic" parts of the Blackmoor campaign already. (General campaign, Dungeons of Blackmoor, Temple of the Frog)

Just some ideas:
* They could develop the town of Blackmoor more.
* They could get into the techno-magic aspect of the campaign.
* There must be a crashed spaceship to explore.
* Perhaps a book with more detail about some of the most significant personalities of the campaign, although a lot of this is already in the core rulebook.
* Glendover dungeon could be expanded, as could Mello's establishment and Svenny's stronghold. These all seemed pretty brief in the FFC and I don't know how much detail is needed here.
* Module DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor had a time-travel element. Perhaps a more developed timeline with guidelines for time travel would be interesting.

Zeitgeist is already putting out quite a few "episodes" to use to experinece the world. What's next, nation splatbooks? I wonder if there are enough differences in the elves of the campaign (for example) to make an entire nation book worthwhile and I'd hate to have a bunch of generic books cranked out just to make the campaign "complete".

Just thinkin'...
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-Havard

Just thought it would be worth starting a collection of web links to where Blackmoor can be found. Old timers probably have all of these places bookmarked, but I thought it would be nice to start a list anyway!

There is a section on my OD&D Discussion board.

There are something like eighty posts about Blackmoor that exist on Dragonsfoot.

Havard's Blackmoor site has all sorts of maps, articles, downloads, and so on.

The Great Svenny has some stories of the "good old days" of Blackmoor.

Blackmoor: Home of the Ancients has some neat stuff as well.

The Acaeum has information about the B/X Dave Arneson Series (DA1 - DA4) of modules published by TSR in the 1980's.

Dave Arneson is on wikipedia! So is Blackmoor!

Robert Kuntz's Pied Piperboards have a section on Blackmoor, although the traffic here seems to have mostly dried up. I know at least Svenny posts here occasionally.

The Human Races of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is a Conversion For Basic D&D.

ADDED TO THE LIST: 8)

There is a Blackmoor forum at The Piazza which currently has 137 topics and 941 posts.

Please help me expand this section!

Post any questions about our campaign you might that you might have right here!

Yours,

Rafael

Hi all,

Since we recently got a pretty annoying PM spammer, our little secret project might not be as secret as it was any more.

In any case:

IF YOU GET A PM WITH A SUPPOSED ADMIN TELLING YOU TO CLICK ON BECAUSE A VIRUS HAS BEEN DETECTED ON YOUR PC,
THAT IS A SPAMBOT AND NO REAL ADMIN.

Just in case there is any confusion, with all the recent changes to this forum (formerly known as "Heroes Only").

Yours,

Rafe, a real admin

I've had a look around for a thread explaining what The Regency Council does, but can't find one.

Do you perform a similar role to The Whitestone Council (the group at Dragonlance Nexus) or the Seeker High Council (the group at Beyond the Moons)?

Or is the similarity in names just some sort of co-incidence.

Hehe, thanks a lot! I enjoyed it all the way through.

WE NEED a title for our series of publications, something overall for The Grim Winter, Road to the Promised Land, and The Promised Land.

I'd go with Maiden's Age, but that sounds silly. And since ZGG has already stolen Age of the Wolves... WHAT CAN DO?

http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.p ... opic&t=197

Rafe:

Hello,

I want Zeitgeist game to write a sourcebook on Thonia for me and my gaming group.


Shocked Wink

Really, are there any chances that this could be done, and if yes, then in the forseeable future?

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Me too! Very Happy

HÃ¥vard

PS: This place has been quiet lately, hasn't it? Lorenzo, Sheridan, the rest of you guys, where are you? Crying or Very sad

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Rafael:
Yeah... The Blackmoor Mailing List is far more crowded than the boards over here. Crying or Very sad

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Havard:
If you are just looking for the general geographical outline of Thonia, check out the latest maps on my website done by Lo Zompatore. Specifically this one:
http://www.geocities.com/havardfaa/Mystara_BC3200.jpg

It might give you some ideas. And yes, I am looking forward to more of your theories on the JG/BM connection. I am working on some maps myself that reconsiliate Mr. Zompatore's maps and The Wilderlands...

HÃ¥vard
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Rafe:
hank you! As you might already suspect, I know this material already,.although indeed, it was a brig help when I tried to get a general approach. (Al ye lurkers, check this out! Smile )

Yet, the one thing I would be happy to see from future products would be a general overview of Thonia at the time of the current BM books. Blackmoor depends so highly on that background, and there is nearly nothing known about it.

BTW, in David Ross' BM Gaz, he writes that Thonia was the name of a setting that was used back in the time of the Castles & Crusades Society. Do you happen to know what he could refer to?

Yours,

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Havard:
Yeah, it would be interesting. I see Thonia as a cross between the Roman Empire and those decandent civilized cultures from Conan.

Quote:
BTW, in David Ross' BM Gaz, he writes that Thonia was the name of a setting that was used back in the time of the Castles & Crusades Society. Do you happen to know what he could refer to?


I only know that the Castles & Crusades Society were sort of an early live RPG group, reenaciting medieval battles etc. I doubt that they had given the exact setting much thought, but rather "Thonia" would have been just a name they gave their "world", without developing it much further.

These are just speculations though. If they did have a more developed setting, this could provide us with some ideas for how to flesh out the empire further.

Another theory is that Thonia is just another name for the Kingdom of Karnak from the Wilderlands Setting. I dont know if that kingdom was ever detailed ever though, maybe you know more about that? I will be picking up my copy of the Wilderlands PHB on friday BTW Smile
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Havard:
That's interesting - my Thonia is nearly 100% like late imperial Rome as well.

As to what you say about the C&C society, very interesting. I'll ask one of the wises over at DF for a definite answer... This really intriguing...

havard wrote:

Another theory is that Thonia is just another name for the Kingdom of Karnak from the Wilderlands Setting. I dont know if that kingdom was ever detailed ever though, maybe you know more about that? I will be picking up my copy of the Wilderlands PHB on friday BTW Smile


And? What do you think of it?

I personally don't make BM and WL direct neighbours, but have the Kingdom of Karak border to a great desert, which borders to Thonia's south.
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Havard:
I was actually very happy with the Players Guide to the Wilderlands. I had no idea the setting would be so intriguing. All this talk of Old Skool and First Edition Feel actually made me think the setting was actually turning me off the setting a bit, but this all disappeared when I read through the book.

I like how the Wilderlands has a clear Sword&Sorcery feel, making it distinguish itself from most other settings. It should fit well with Blackmoor which also has some of these elements, yet is IMO distinctly different from the WL too. The technology aspect and certain Arthurian elements are the main things that I'd say make BM different from the WL.

I also have some room between the WL and Blackmoor. We can extend the Valley of the Ancients quite a bit so that is not much of a problem really. Also, the Kingdom of Karak's exact location is so vague we can move it around a bit. IMC I'm thinking perhaps it should border on Thonia though...

HÃ¥vard
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Rafe:

I still have that timeline in the making that shall reconcile both settings - I'll post it over here as soon as I can put it into a printable form. Smile

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Rafe:

Hehehe... I'll work on finishing that article as soon as two things are fulfilled:

1. I still have to finish my submission to the Footprints Mag at DF.

2. I still have to get a real idea of what is happening in BM's present day: Campaign year is 1032, if I am not mistaken. But what exactly has happened so far? Which MMRPG mod is canon, and which one not? Smile Gaah! Wink

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Havard:
Are you using Zimriel's timeline for reference at all?

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Rafe:
Yes. I have already completed the timeline, but want to put the things in a better form - like in a scale for Bardic Knowledge checks. Smile For my timeline I used Zimriel's notes, as well as what I found on your site, in combination with *official* BM d20 notes and a couple of othermaterials and modules, mainly what is found in the WL Box. - And some stuff from my own campaigns as well.

Did you already get lost in the wonderful world of the Wilderlands? Smile When my box arrived, the next two days were only RPG for me... Very Happy

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Havard:
Why dont you let us see your current version and then you can reorganize it after you get our feedback? Wink

I like the Bardic Knowledge organized format used in the Wilderlands box. Very neat!

Quote:
Did you already get lost in the wonderful world of the Wilderlands? Smile When my box arrived, the next two days were only RPG for me... Very Happy


Yeah, I was for a while! I love the setting, though the boxed set was a bit heavy on detail even for my tastes. Still, it was a great read. I love the ancient world feel the setting has.

Since my Blackmoor has taken a more steampunk heavy turn, I am wondering how ideally the settings would work together though. Travelling into the Wilderlands from Blackmoor would definately take the campaign to a different turn. Still, that could be interesting too...
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Falconer:
Since the "Great Kingdom" of the Blackmoor setting has a common origin with the "Great Kingdom" of the Greyhawk setting, why not look at some of the material for the latter to flesh out the former? There's Rob Kuntz's Maze of Zayene series (Prisoners of the Maze, Dimensions of Flight, Tower Chaos, and The Eight Kings) and The Fate of Istus as well as Carl Sargent's monumental Ivid the Undying. That's what I use! Regards.

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Gsvenson:
In fact, in the early days sometimes our characters traveled across the Great Kingdom from Blackmoor to Greyhawk and back when we went down to visit Gary in Lake Geneva in real life. I can vaguely remember doing that. Seems to me we flew down on tarn back (the "Tarnsman of Gore" series was popular at the time).
Greg

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Havard:

Good idea! My only reason for not going down that path earlier is the amount of information I would have to go through to familiarize myself with Greyhawk. Your list make things alot easier though. How would you sum up Greyhawk's Great Kingdom in a few words?

Note that I don't use the Wilderlands as Thonia IMC. Rather, the Wilderlands lay west of Thonia.

Greg:
-That sounds sweet! So Svenny has wrecked havoc in the lands of Greyhawk as well? Smile
- Re: Tarnsman of Gor: yikes! *hides under the table* Shocked

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Rafe:

havard Wrote:Why dont you let us see your current version and then you can reorganize it after you get our feedback?

havard Wrote:Since my Blackmoor has taken a more steampunk heavy turn, I am wondering how ideally the settings would work together though. Travelling into the Wilderlands from Blackmoor would definately take the campaign to a different turn. Still, that could be interesting too...

gsvenson Wrote:(the "Tarnsman of Gore" series was popular at the time).