GenCon 1976: Tindell's Adventure in the Blackmoor Dungeon

[aldarron]

Great analysis Havard!

[url=http://blackmoor.mystara.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&p=13817#p13817"]Thanks to Heymikey's recent thread,[/url]
.....

Apparently Blackmoor Castle was destroyed during a battle actually played in Lake Geneva and over the hundred or so years ensuing the elves who took over ignored the increase of chaos beneath them. This led to the present difficulties.

100 years? Well, at least we know that this game took place during the FFC era when the elves guard the Castle.

Yeah, as John Snider has pointed our and I think Greg too, the original campaign had gone into stasis in 1975 and that meant Fang was still a vampire and Blackmoor Castle was abandoned. I don't think that changed till Dave started to think about publishing balckmoor again in the mid '80's.

The party went through various tests administered by the elves to try to make certain that we were not attempting to join the Chaotics below (drink holy water, touch silver crosses, etc.) We then entered a large odd-shaped room which I heard was once the throneroom of the castle, but had since changed shape. Many doors out of this chamber were found, leading to linen closets (with outhouse-style arrangements) and some leading to five-foot corridors.

I am intrigued by the tests the elves had the characters go through. Would those tests be employed by the elves in other areas as well? Why was there a real fear of other chaotics wanting to join those below? Does King Funk really inspire such awe among Chaotics around the world? Or Lord Fang? Interesting!

Also, the Throne Room has changed shape? Magically? Or through reconstruction?

Tests, including drinking Holy water "provided at bargain rates by the church of the facts of life run by bishop Carr" are mentioned in the FFC under "Elves"

The throne room referred to is the "basement" and was remodeled, both the open map and throne room map are given in the FFC.

We finally chose one such corridor (with some trepidation; walking single file can be dangerous!) after a drunken fighter named Richard leaped into a linen closet and tripped...We walked along it a bit until it widened to ten feet (apparently a major disaster collapsed the room and the area was repaired to different specifications).

The drunken fighter is of course Bozero! Did Richard Snider play his brother's character, or does Rossi confuse the two? Perhaps both Sniders were at the table?

At this point (having no graph paper), Tindell became lost. He vaguely recalls walking down a long corridor and then turning back when the ceiling started becoming quite wet. The group also burst into a room of goblins who fought tenaciously (Tindell racks up two!) until they caught sight of "the Great Sweeney." They instantly recognized him and immediately dropped weapons, etc., and ran like...er. heaven was after them. We pursued and killed a couple more and then found a door held closed by an ogre's body. We shoved our way in and continued exploration. Tindell brightly suggested spiking a door open and the group woke up...ten people began spiking it. Ho hum.

Svenny would have a reputation among Goblin folks given his history in the Dungeon. No wonder they fled when they saw him

Finally we came to an open stairway with circular stairs down which we heard music playing. Richard stumbled down the stairs immediately. The rest of the group halted and tried to decide to follow him or not, Tindell urging them on. As we walked down, we heard the orc national anthem (don't blame me; it's Arneson's dungeon; how could orcs have one nation?) played backwards. This brought a horde of orcs on us from in front. While we battled (and Sweeney worked his way forward) ten of the fifty ran off. Soon after, thirty hit us in the rear as well. The battle was fierce with wounds exchanged rapidly on both sides, but when Sweeney appeared up front, again the orcs ran off. Arneson stated: "Sweeney, in a whirlwind, has just killed 17 orcs in this melee round" (!) (Not only that, no one else was allowed to pursue. I'm still confused about this.)

The details of Richard/Bozero are too funny!
The Orcish "national" anthem is of course Rule Britannia, which can be heard when descending down the "Orcian Way" as Aldarron mentioned in this thread.

Is the idea of an Orc nation so absurd? I know several settings have Orc Kingdoms. I think that the idea of Funk's Rulership over all Orcs could probably be compared to the High Kings of Ireland though. While it would have little every day impact on the various Orc tribes, Funk could use his status to rally the tribes in times of war.

I think "nation" here is used in the sense of a united group of tribes as is common for Native Americans e.g. Sioux Nation, Cherokee Nation, etc. Midwesterners are likely to understand it that way.

In the rear one fighter died and nearly everyone was wounded. At this point, I showed my ignorance. Coming from an LA dungeon (distinct from Bay Area) I was used to multiple spell casting capabilities and asked why our first level MU didn't throw sleep his second time. (The third level MU never threw anything!) The howls of shocked amazement nearly caused me to hide under the table. I rapidly learned "the right way" to play MUs.

As blogger Sham points out at the blog where Paley's story was reprinted, it is interesting that there were different rules conventions in the LA Dungeon scene, the Bay Area scene etc based on different interpretations of the rules.

After Sweeney "feared" the others, we slew all but one slept orc and questioned the remaining one. He told us Richard had come down the stairs, taken one look at the horde and run back up, disappearing. Figuring that he lied, our dwarves dismembered him.

What happened to Richard? Did he leave the game at this point?

On exploring this level, we entered a room, finding some 12 "heroes" in plate with crossbows. We found they were not chaotic and not friendly, so we left. A bit farther on, we found a room full of gold. Sweeney and some of the lawfuls stayed out, but Tindell entered to investigate a gold statue (perhaps a religious article?). When Tindell realized that the others were merely filling their packs with gold, he complained loudly and ordered them to leave his "share" behind. A number of other lawfuls agreed but not many.

Interesting!
Who were these heroes? Other adventurers exploring the dungeon? I guess it was a popular adventuring location. What was this God statue? I need to see if it was included in the D20 version of the Dungeon.

"Hero" here no doubt refers to 4th level fighters. I think them may have been a wandering monster roll. Tried to get at the location in this thread http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=4666 as you may recall.