Adventures in Fantasy as a Blackmoor Setting Resource?

[Havard]

Well, the Referee's map looks compatible enough with Blackmoor - wasn't Bleakwood originally the name of a place near Bramwalk, alongside the shores of Steelhead River? (I don't remember, at all. )

Sure the map is one thing. I think you are thinking about the Bleakwood Section from the FFC. It is noted that this place is close to Bramwald. I dont see a "Steelhead river" anywhere?

Personally, I think the entire atmosphere fits more into either a VoA, or a Loch Gloomen environment.

I dont see how it would fit with any of these, especially not the Valley of the Ancients.

IMC I have placed it south of Hak, just west of the Thonian Rand area.



-Havard

[Rafael]

Mwaha, you messed up the quote function. :wink:

Sure the map is one thing. I think you are thinking about the Bleakwood Section from the FFC. It is noted that this place is close to Bramwald. I dont see a "Steelhead river" anywhere?

Hexes 4520-4522 on the DA 1 map. I think when we talked about this many years back, YOU mentioned this location - because I really haven't used the area much in my own games.

I dont see how it would fit with any of these, especially not the Valley of the Ancients.

IMC I have placed it south of Hak, just west of the Thonian Rand area.

Not the Valley itself, of course, but its environs and borders. Bosero's Tower, perhaps, with a few tweaks. - And Loch Gloomen, because of the "Frog" references; I could see the hex as a stand-in for Ran's Tower, perhaps, again, with a few tweaks.

I myself set things far south, as you know, and tied things to the LFC. I don't have my docs around here, but I think Bleakwood was supposed to be west of Synobia.

[Havard]

Hexes 4520-4522 on the DA 1 map. I think when we talked about this many years back, YOU mentioned this location - because I really haven't used the area much in my own games.

Ah I see it now. The proximity to Bramwald comes from the FFC. I don't think the Steelhead is mentioned there. I actually speculated that the Black Castle of the Orc King (FFC) is located somewhere near the Steelhead River.

But multiple locations are possible for Bramwald. The Blackmoor map was expanded after the publication of the FFC. So I guess it would depend on how much you want to take those into account.

In any case, I am at this point more interested in other setting concepts from AiF than purely the Bleakwood Hex itself.

The new monsters are a gold mine alone. 8)

-Havard

[aldarron]

Hexes 4520-4522 on the DA 1 map. I think when we talked about this many years back, YOU mentioned this location - because I really haven't used the area much in my own games.

Ah I see it now. The proximity to Bramwald comes from the FFC. I don't think the Steelhead is mentioned there. I actually speculated that the Black Castle of the Orc King (FFC) is located somewhere near the Steelhead River.

But multiple locations are possible for Bramwald.

-Havard

Prolly a good topic for another thread but before I go on to talk about the OP, Bleakwood can be located pretty well if you allow one assumption, that Black Hills and Black Mountains are the same. Aif p21 locates the dragon lair to the southwest of Bleakwood "high in the Black Mountains". That would put the area of Bleakwood between the Black Hills and Iron Hills on the Blackmoor map, near to or along the Greenway. That is more or less "next to Bramwald" per the FFC.

[aldarron]

The things I am looking into now are:
1) Bleakwood Mini-setting (this goes without saying).
2) References to Religion and Cosmology

Yes, mostly completly. The calendar is probably the only exception for me. It seems more in line with Richard Snider and the Perilous lands than Blackmoor and in any case clashes with the much more well developed Blackmoor calendar.

3) Alignments: Alignments seem to be more like Elric-eque forces in AiF than in D&D.

Not sure exactly what you have in mind here, but the alignment of magic, spells, and artifacts in AiF seems to fit right in with Blackmoor.

4) Monsters: Monsters sometimes say more about the setting than just that the monsters are there.

I have become much more cautious about this. It strikes me quite strongly that only a few of the monsters show Arneson's hand - most notably the dragon entry. The majority of the monsters look like the research and writing of Richard Snider, very much in the vein of his Perilous lands setting, meaning the alternate mythological earth approach, rather than the wild fantasy styling of Blackmoor. They're all fair game, of course, but I would avoid changing any details from OD&D based on an AiF description.

5) Artifacts: What are their origins, who used them etc?

Mostly

6) The Faerry Races
-Havard

Well, mostly not for the reasons given under monsters above.