Looking to start a campaign in Blackmoor, where do I start?

[acorn]

Hey all! I'm new to this site as well as the huge fantasy setting which is Blackmoor! I wanted to ask how I would go about running a campaign based in this world using D&D 5e. I see a lot of the stuff on this site is geared towards older versions of D&D, as Blackmoor originally was, and all the content on this site is very overwhelming, although fascinating.

I'm thinking for the campaign I can generally stick to 5e, I have seen the Race and Class conversions by our lord and savior, Harvard. I'm just struggling to to grasp how to wrap my head around the expansive lore of this campaign setting and where to begin a sandbox campaign in this massive world.

Thanks for any info!

-acorn

[RobJN]

Hey all! I'm new to this site as well as the huge fantasy setting which is Blackmoor! I wanted to ask how I would go about running a campaign based in this world using D&D 5e. I see a lot of the stuff on this site is geared towards older versions of D&D, as Blackmoor originally was, and all the content on this site is very overwhelming, although fascinating.

I'm thinking for the campaign I can generally stick to 5e, I have seen the Race and Class conversions by our lord and savior, Harvard. I'm just struggling to to grasp how to wrap my head around the expansive lore of this campaign setting and where to begin a sandbox campaign in this massive world.

Thanks for any info!

-acorn

People and places.

If you want to emphasize exploration, concentrate on the "what" and the "where." Where can the PCs go, and what can they find there? The City of the Gods, the Temple of the Frog, the Temple of the Id, the risen lands of the Egg of COOT, the Gargoyle Hills, the Tower of Blue Glass -- these are all places to go, but in some cases, the people to see come secondary. This is not to say that the NPCs are not important -- just that the lure of the location will lead to the PCs involvement with them, rather than with their directly interacting with the PCs to begin with.

Which leads me to the other avenue of sandboxing: the NPCs. Blackmoor is chock full of them, many of them powerful, some legendary (Hi, Greg!). Going the social/political route will emphasize the "who." (No, not The Who!) Get to know the NPCs, their allegiances, their goals and desires, and then it's just a matter of how your group of PCs will bounce off of those. Who do they know? How do they know them? What have those NPCs asked of the group? What happens once the PCs foil another NPCs plans?

You don't have to know everyone and everything. Start with a few places 'close to home,' and the NPCs who move-and-shake there. Then its just a matter of spiraling outward, geographically, or politically.

And in addition to Havard's 5e work, I've also cooked up the Half-Sidhe and the Soulbound Construct races for my own iteration of Blackmoor....

[Greg]

I highly recommend buying and reading the D&D D20/3.5 version of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. It's a campaign setting book, but it has much of the lore and information you might need to run a sandbox campaign. I was able to buy a brand new hard copy within the past year, but you can also get a PDF version through DriveThruRPG.com.

I would read chapters 1 and 4-6 for the core lore and information about the setting. There's good information on NPCs in chapter 7, although a number of NPCs from the original Blackmoor campaign are not included. Chapter 8 covers monsters unique to Blackmoor, although you can convert these fairly easily to 5E with WotC's official conversion guidelines. There's also an adventure included in Chapter 9, and you can find adventure ideas and random encounter tables in the Appendix.

In terms of a starting location, the Kingdom of Blackmoor is an obvious choice since it's home to the city of Blackmoor, and the towns and areas have plenty of lore and information. The whole northeast region of the kingdom is ideal, including places such as the City of Maus, Jackport, Archlis, and Newgate. As you get into the Great Dismal Swamp to the west, between Blackmoor and The Duchy of Ten, you have plenty of additional towns and locations to work with. Then you have the duchy itself, which is occupied by the Afridhi and now part of their empire. Those are all prime locations for starting a sandbox campaign.

The big threats are the Afridhi from the west, the Skandaharians from the north, the Thonian Empire to the east and southeast, and the Egg of Coot and his mysterious, sinister workings in the Kingdom of Blackmoor and beyond. This is in addition to political and military intrigues involving the Duchy of Ten, the dwarves of the Regent of the Mines, Ringlo Hall and the Cumasti elves, the Westryn elves to the west, the various Blackmoor baronies, and the Wizard's Cabal. Then you have the fact that Blackmoor is a points of light setting with a lot of wild, dangerous and unexplored areas.

The D20/3.5 edition map is a great resource, although the version you can find online isn't large enough and doesn't have high enough resolution to be really useful. Havard has a nice Blackmoor map hosted on his site, but I recommend using Adobe's snapshot tool to create a digital copy of the large, hi-res map that comes with the D20-era PDF.

I have also been building a glossography reference for Blackmoor, based on the D20 book as well as a couple of the older sources such as the DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor module from TSR and even some snippets from the First Fantasy Campaign (FFC). It's based on all the locations you can find on the D20 Blackmoor map, but it's a work in progress and far from complete.

If you end up using the D20 book as a resource, I came up with some of my own playable race/class conversions using 5E options:

Docrae = Lightfoot Halfling
Halfling = Stout Halfling
Cumasti Elf = High Elf
Westryn Elf = Wood Elf

Arcane Warrior = Eldritch Knight
Wokan = Druid
Monk = Order of the Mystic or Order of the Star
Skandaharian = Barbarian
Beastman = Orc or Half-Orc (Barbarian or Barbarian/Druid)
Ash Goblin = Goblin
Baleborne Orc = Hobgoblin

[Yaztromo]

I were where you are now (looking forward to run the games with a different ruleset from the ones used for the official publications) about one and half years ago and I went for the MMRPG material that you can find on this website, converting on the fly. It went well, as I am still happily running that campaign viewtopic.php?f=76&t=8800 and the players are happy too.
The very first adventure that I run was The Comeback Inn, Episode 1 of that campaign. It is the perfect introductory adventure, co-authored by Dave Arneson.

[aldarron]

First and Foremost:

1) START SMALL

Pick a location as the home of the PC's or most of them anyway, and read all the material you can find on it. The location you pick should reflect the kind of adventure settings you want to promote but isn't essential. For example, if you hope to do some swamp campaigning, have them start out in a place like Boggybottom.

If you are thinking of possibly running adventures in Tonisborg, you could have them start in Vestfold.

As the campaign grows, feed them lots of hints and rumors to give the players choices about where they want to go.

2) PICK A TIME PERIOD

Blackmoor in it's various incarnations has been set at different times. So, you can set your game anytime before, anytime after, and anytime during the reign of King Uther. Look at the timeline and decide for yourself what period best reflects the feel of campaing you want.

I choose the Mage Wars period, but you may want something more stable or something even more turbulent.

Don't worry overmuch about converting stuff. It is your campaign - make up the stats to suit.

What I did:
For my current campaign I started the group in Erac, and merged the town details with those of Portown in the Holmes rulebook (easy fit) I then used the Holmes basic adventure as a start and since then the characters have traveled far and wide.