[S4] EPISODE 77: Leaving The Nest

[Havard]

Honestly, I got involved writing for the MMRPG because I needed a creative outlet. Chris Gale and I were gaming and workout buddies, and instead of staring at the TV like all the other sheep while we were in the gym, we would bounce game ideas off each other. That's what started us on Brushfire (Ep 71) as a collaboration. We also had a storyline in the works that we'd tentatively titled The Agents, that would have explored how the Thonian Empire was exploiting the Wizard's Cabal to weaken the Kingdom by witch-hunting any and all sorcerors, including those of noble blood, even those favored by King Uther himself...

The Children of War series came about because I was simultaneously playing in the Living Greyhawk campaign world, and Michigan was Furyondy, another good-aligned kingdom under constant siege from outside forces. I was intrigued by parallel elements I saw in both settings, and I played around with a bunch of ideas, trying to see which world might better fit for what I had in mind. When I heard some of the backstory of the Valley of the Ancients, I knew that I could set Children of War in Blackmoor.

It is so fascinating to hear how these adventures came to be and what the background for them was, Brian!

Dembol Sachar, at least as described in the block-text in the mods, is simply a misguided but loyal flesh-shaper. In reality, he was one of the aliens whose starship crash-landed, and he actually made it out of the crater. (Where do you think Gary Gygax got the idea for the spaceship in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks?) I was going to build to a big reveal on that one through the next... three mods. Yeah, looking at my notes, would've been a 5-mod arc, finishing in the VotA.

Indeed! Blackmoor's influences on the hobby run deep I like how Dembol Sacnar was linked to the Valley of the Ancients.

As for how we got approval for all of this, we were friends with both Joe Kavanagh and Jared Eaton (Joe had started in Michigan, Jared was still there at the time), both of whom worked much more closely with Dustin Clingman, and had actually met him. I approached Jared, who as I recall, became the storyline manager for the last 9-10 months of the campaign, and ran the Brushfire idea up the flagpole. Ditto with the Children of War series. Jared took both concepts to Dustin as the head of the campaign, and got approval.

Nice! Both Jared and Dustin post at this forum from time to time.

I admit that I was very fortunate, there was a very solid, dedicated core of Blackmoor players in Michigan (centered around Jae Walker, one of the Best Damn GMs alive), very interested in story-telling, and they served as great sounding boards. Some of us also served as first-line playtesters for a whole slew of the mods, and because of discussions relating to that, I learned a great deal more about world history, as well as of a few areas that the campaign staff wanted explored, but not necessarily nailed down. Valley of the Ancients, Thonian Empire, the Afridhi war machine, the dwarven Mountain Lords, and so on.

Interesting! I have talked to Jae a little bit on social media, but I didnt know she was such a great DM.

Anyway, if you are up for writing more adventures for Blackmoor, I would love to see what you have in store! Other authors of the MMRPG also seem to be coming back to Blackmoor...we live in awesome times!

-Havard