Blackmoor Fiction

[ripvanwormer]

I notice you don't mention Gary Gygax's serialized novel The Gnome Cache, which mentions Blackmoor.

From Dragon Magazine #6:

So the journey continued thus for many days, the beasts plodding along at no great speed due to their heavy loads, but what was the value of speed compared with more freight? The land was sparsely settled, but much to Evan’s relief they reached the border keep of Blackmoor unmolested by robbers. The trader railed at the tallage levied upon his caravan by the marcher lord, but there was no help for it. Dunstan suspected he was secretly so pleased at the ease with which the passage was made that he would have paid twice the duty. As they departed from the village of Blackmoor, the grim walls of the guardian castle frowned down upon their left, a reminder that the land was held by force of arms. The soldiers Dunstan saw were as grim as their fortress, and the young man mused that the peace here was due mainly to strong warriors. From the looks cast at them by the Nehron peasants who inhabited the settlement and the surrounding farms, this border noble bore down heavily upon his unwilling subjects. A twist in the lane soon removed the castle from sight, and the whole matter passed from consideration.

In Dragon #7 they return to Blackmoor to find it in ruins:

In half an hour’s travel through the evergreens paralleling the lane, Dunstan came to the foot of a steep hill. After ascending the eminence and finding the view still obstructed he climbed well up into a tall conifer and from this position both the village and the castle could be seen. While the village appeared to be little hurt, the fortress was partially ruined — evidently by fire, for the smoke they had seen emanated from the still smouldering rubble of what had been some of the lesser buildings within the place. The keep was intact, however, and it flew a green banner with a white wolf’s head, the flag raised by the united bands of Nehronland.
...
"Eventually Blackmoor will be regained, and perhaps another few leagues of territory added to the Overking’s march here. Mark my words.”

And the final line in chapter 7 could be read as referring to the Order of the Frog:

“Great Gods!” expostulated the startled errant. “It is a dwarf being pursued by a pack of giant toads and weirdly hopping men!”

Thanks for the plug for my Flaem stuff, but I didn't mention the Ordo Elementalis in it (they appeared in some later stuff I wrote about the City of Brass).