09-14-2024, 09:06 AM
Talk about opening a can of worms, lol.
Cawmee the timeline published in The Weird Enclave of Blackmoor covers some of those issues and is heavily footnoted. You just have to remember to add 644 years to convert dates from Oeridian to Blackmoor standard.
Alternatively you can reference the earlier version on my blog https://boggswood.blogspot.com/2019/10/a...eline.html which uses the familiar Blackmoor dates. Real years are also included in certain places for reference
As Havard mentioned, campaign time followed real years (mostly) especially after 1975 and there are inevitable conflicts in dates between the various iterations, but these are always resolvable - as Havard's example shows. The timeline published in the ZG PG/CS is largely a reprint of the fanwork by David Ross and suffers from a number of mistakes, however the history given in The Wizards Cabal is much much better and is the best source you can find in "official" material.
To your question of the Totf timeline, I followed LoZempatore's timeline and more or less TSR Blackmoor reasoning and placed the destruction of the temple in 1026.
Return to the TotF however takes place "more than twenty years" after the destruction of the temple. Theoretically that's around 1038, just a couplle years after the initial appearance of the Drakon'katha. This storyline conflicts somewhat with that of DA3 and ZGs City of the Gods, in that both of these have a post temple destruction Stephen running around and causing trouble in the "Valley of the Ancients". (itself a contradiction because the VoA is a JG Wilderlands location, lol).
Return to ToTF however does also have Stephen conducting raids against the CoG, the difference is that he is now a vampire with only a single companion for some reason, and the DA and ZG modules don't say that. Instead Stephen is in charge of an "army" of Bandits.
There is way to reconcile these three adventures through the descriptive text in DA3, similar actually to Havard's suggestion. DA3 has Stephen actively and aggressively rebuilding the Temple after its "destruction" in DA2.
This allows us to say that the ZG/MMRPG adventure takes place in the rebuilt temple and around the year 1032, one year before the Afridhi invasion through the Great Swamp (MMRPG 61) in 1033.
That would make the Return to ToTF take place around 1055, which is the year Uther dies. Given the overall situation I would move that to 1056 (23 years "later").
This also means that both the DA3 module and the ZG module of City of the Gods are the same adventure and take place around 1027.
This of course causes a conflict with ZG's version of the COG, but I don't see a better solution and one timeline conflict is better than the multiple conflicts with the TotF adventures. So here is how it would break out:
1025 - DA modules
1026 - DA2 adventure
1027 - City of the Gods adventure - defeat of Stephen's army. Stephen becomes a vampire
1030: Baron Zvenzen made Lord High Regent of the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Blackmoor (House Zvenzen Gazetteer p18)
1031: First appearance of Plagueborn Zombies. (MMRPG 37)
1032: ZG Temple of the Frog adventure and final destruction of the temple
1033: New Afridhi offensive through the Great Swamp; repulsed by Uther (MMRPG 61)
1034: Uther and allies launch an all out assault on the Afridhi in Ten.
1055: Death of Uther - end to Drakon'katha threat
1056: Return to the Temple of the Frog adventure.
Thoughts?
Cawmee the timeline published in The Weird Enclave of Blackmoor covers some of those issues and is heavily footnoted. You just have to remember to add 644 years to convert dates from Oeridian to Blackmoor standard.
Alternatively you can reference the earlier version on my blog https://boggswood.blogspot.com/2019/10/a...eline.html which uses the familiar Blackmoor dates. Real years are also included in certain places for reference
As Havard mentioned, campaign time followed real years (mostly) especially after 1975 and there are inevitable conflicts in dates between the various iterations, but these are always resolvable - as Havard's example shows. The timeline published in the ZG PG/CS is largely a reprint of the fanwork by David Ross and suffers from a number of mistakes, however the history given in The Wizards Cabal is much much better and is the best source you can find in "official" material.
To your question of the Totf timeline, I followed LoZempatore's timeline and more or less TSR Blackmoor reasoning and placed the destruction of the temple in 1026.
Return to the TotF however takes place "more than twenty years" after the destruction of the temple. Theoretically that's around 1038, just a couplle years after the initial appearance of the Drakon'katha. This storyline conflicts somewhat with that of DA3 and ZGs City of the Gods, in that both of these have a post temple destruction Stephen running around and causing trouble in the "Valley of the Ancients". (itself a contradiction because the VoA is a JG Wilderlands location, lol).
Return to ToTF however does also have Stephen conducting raids against the CoG, the difference is that he is now a vampire with only a single companion for some reason, and the DA and ZG modules don't say that. Instead Stephen is in charge of an "army" of Bandits.
There is way to reconcile these three adventures through the descriptive text in DA3, similar actually to Havard's suggestion. DA3 has Stephen actively and aggressively rebuilding the Temple after its "destruction" in DA2.
This allows us to say that the ZG/MMRPG adventure takes place in the rebuilt temple and around the year 1032, one year before the Afridhi invasion through the Great Swamp (MMRPG 61) in 1033.
That would make the Return to ToTF take place around 1055, which is the year Uther dies. Given the overall situation I would move that to 1056 (23 years "later").
This also means that both the DA3 module and the ZG module of City of the Gods are the same adventure and take place around 1027.
This of course causes a conflict with ZG's version of the COG, but I don't see a better solution and one timeline conflict is better than the multiple conflicts with the TotF adventures. So here is how it would break out:
1025 - DA modules
1026 - DA2 adventure
1027 - City of the Gods adventure - defeat of Stephen's army. Stephen becomes a vampire
1030: Baron Zvenzen made Lord High Regent of the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Blackmoor (House Zvenzen Gazetteer p18)
1031: First appearance of Plagueborn Zombies. (MMRPG 37)
1032: ZG Temple of the Frog adventure and final destruction of the temple
1033: New Afridhi offensive through the Great Swamp; repulsed by Uther (MMRPG 61)
1034: Uther and allies launch an all out assault on the Afridhi in Ten.
1055: Death of Uther - end to Drakon'katha threat
1056: Return to the Temple of the Frog adventure.
Thoughts?