Skyfall: When did the Spaceship Crash into Blackmoor?

[Havard]

In 1973 and early 1974 we were playing John Snider's "Star Empires" campaign at the same time that we were playing pre D&D in Blackmoor. The planet where Blackmoor was located was on John's star map near Scott Belfry's Avian empire, so his scout ships attempted to explore it. After losing some ships they quarantined the planet. Stephen Rocheford's minor humanoid empire might have been near it, too, since the aliens in the City of the Gods were humanoids. I think that Richard Snider's character had a cape, captured from the Avians, that allowed him to fly...

Ah thanks for providing the dates and details on this here Greg! Based on what we have mapped in the Campaign Chronology thread, it seems like this would correspond to somewhere around the years 998-999.

The DA modules didnt go into detail on galactic civilisations etc, but also didnt rule out the existence of there being other forces involved beyond those linked to the Spaceship, the Beagle, either. Attempting to provide a link between DA 2 Temple of the Frog and DA3 City of the Gods, the authors (Ritchie and Arneson) decided to make St Stephen a rebel from the space ship that had crashed in the Valley of the Ancients (the Beagle). This contradicts some older material, in particular Supplement II, which states that St Stephen had superiors in a space ship above the planet. We have talked some more about this in the 1979 City of the Gods thread.

I wonder though if the "a little more than five years ago" reference could have been something that entered DA3 from Arneson's notes and that it meant fire years before the original campaign, not five years before the adventure (which is set 25-30 years after the FFC).

-Havard