Cawme's Blackmoor Campaign.

[CawmeKrazee]

I've recently begun a 5e campaign taking place in the Blackmoor setting but before we get into that I need to get into the changes I've done to my world. 

The world my players are playing on have had a majority of DnD settings made into continents or in Eberron's case. The moon. (The Radiant Citadel a floating crystal with it's own atmosphere in the planet's orbit). 

The next thing of note is I put Dave Arneson's Blackmoor where the Greyhawk Blackmoor is at. 
Since there was no official world map of Blackmoor I took the map from the Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign book and made it a bit different. (I have no finished map of this look yet but in future updates I'll post it. 

I've had my players start in Northern Blackmoor. North of Bartertown because there was no lore I could find on that region so it was the easiest for me to homebrew. To see the finished map of my Northern Blackmoor. Click here Cawme's Northern Blackmoor Map. 

As you can see there are a multitude of new areas here. The keen eyes will see that the Village of Hommlet, Nulb and most definitely The Temple of Elemental Evil is here. 

I decided to start my players off with that module along with a few generic adventures before we tackled the larger Blackmoor campaign as I figured this would be the best way to get my players acclimated to the area. I have no doubt they will want to go to Barttown to try and get better gear and loot eventually but for now they are there.

Feel free to ask me about other towns that I've placed there. Like the port town Jozan or the Dwarven City of Baylor against the edge of Mount Baylor. I'm sure some of you are curious about Faren's Rest too. 

Some of these cities and locations appear in official modules while some are only mentioned. The only true homebrew town is the port town of Jozan as that was mostly a starting point for my players. 

I plan to have the Egg of Coot's watchful eyes and servants keeping an eye on them eventually. 

I've started my players in the year of 1028. 2 years before the start  of the Ties that Bind adventure. 
I plan to run them through every single Blackmoor adventure module I've found on here. Which I have a majority of the official stuff. From the DA1-4 books to the MMRPG to all the ZTG modules. I plan to be able to exhaust this setting for all I can. 

eventually I plan take the party further south to Greyhawk itself and get them started on that. However, I know that is years out as I have so much planned for my group and I can't wait to take them on this historical journey where we all learn so much. 

I cant wait to plant the seeds for the Egg of Coot. Vecna. Pale Night and so much more not to mention hope one of them plays a sorcerer and they realize how different things were back then in this era of time compared to our current modern era. Cause sorcerers here are shunned and hunted by the Wizard's Cabal.

[Yaztromo]

What a great plan!

If you are interested in some fan material about Bartertown, maybe you can have a look here: https://blackmoor.mystara.us/forums/show...p?tid=2730

[CawmeKrazee]

What a great plan!

If you are interested in some fan material about Bartertown, maybe you can have a look here: https://blackmoor.mystara.us/forums/show...p?tid=2730

What can you tell me about the fan material?

[Havard]

Very cool! I really like your map CawmeeKrazee!

Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

-Havard

[CawmeKrazee]

Very cool! I really like your map CawmeeKrazee!

Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

-Havard

Thank you! They just finished up the Cave of Shadows and will be on their way to Hommlet the next session! From there it really will depend! I'm excited to see how this all goes!

[CawmeKrazee]

im trying to decide if I should change the Church of St. Cuthbert into like a church to Henrin and find a druid god for Hommlet's Druid followers from the Blackmoor pantheon.

[Yaztromo]

What a great plan!

If you are interested in some fan material about Bartertown, maybe you can have a look here: https://blackmoor.mystara.us/forums/show...p?tid=2730

What can you tell me about the fan material?

It is a fairly difficult adventure, but then super-rewarding...

[CawmeKrazee]

Session 1

The session begins on June 16th 1028 with the players: Ash, Sheismai Orishi, Inarus departing from the port town of  Jozan located on the eastern coast of Northern Blackmoor. East of Bartertown. They were traveling towards the village of Hommlett and on the dawn of the third day the players were rised by their caravan driver, Ramses Zackery, who pointed out smoke towards the front of their group. Eventually the players would meet up with the guard captain for the caravan, Fletcher Akias, who'd send off the players to do the job they were specifically hired on to do. Scout out possible dangers ahead. The party would scout up to see the trouble. There they'd find a wrecked caravan group with bodies of the fallen all over the dirt road. 

The party would work together using stealth from the safety of the trees attacks the bandits picking them off one by one before only two would escape running in fear of the Docrae Halfling, Kade Valnar, who had ran there from Hommlett to try and save people. 

In the wreckage of the survivors they'd find the lone survivor named Jeffries who was from Hommlett itself trying to head towards Jozan before they were attacked by these bandits in leathers colored black, red, and purple with the insignia of a hand with an eye on it. No one recognizing the symbol. Jeffires was sure they'd be heading up to The Cave of Shadows. A cave once used years ago for evil. After the party had collected their payment from Fletcher they ventured off to try and eradicate this bandit group. Stopping to rest. Inarus and Kade would head towards Hommlett in the morning to make sure no bandits were lurking in the forest as the rest of the party set up camp. Sheismai would take time to pray to her goddess Freya. Offering up gold to empower her with more strength. (Sheismai would be the first to level up).

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Session 2

The players would awaken the next morning safely and find their way towards the Cave of Shadows. There they would find someone there already getting into an altercation with the bandits at the entrance. A tortle that would send an orb of fire through one bandit's chest that would crash into the next ones head decapitating them. This would leave the third bandit guard to run into the cave as the other party members meet up. The tortle, Yuuway, would introduce himself to Ash and Sheismai. The party would venture deep into the cave realizing it was man made and as they reached a "Y" intersection in the cave they would see the silhouette of  a person in the shadows on the right and here growls to the left. Going towards the person on the left they'd find it to be the bandit that ran ready to fight. The party easily dispatched the bandit. Only to realize that the bandit had cut the bridge that connected the cave to another side across a crevice that was twenty feet down. The players would attempt to jump across only for Sheismei to lose her footing and have to climb back up. Taking the time to pull the rope bridge back up to re-tie up to be used for later. 

Once venturing deeper into the cave they would come across the sleeping area of the bandits that was mostly just sleeping bags but they would end up fighting with one bandit that was awake only for the rest to awaken as the party finished killing the first one. Two of the bandits would attack and gang up on Sheismei causing them to go down almost dying only for Ash to force feed a healing potion to them as Yuuway took down the one to down Sheismei. The last bandit would surrender who the group would interrogate and then would proceed to tie up and knockout so they could take a moment to short rest. When the party felt partially rejuvenated they would  ask questions to the bandit once more for her to tell them that the next room was a storeroom that they kept all the goods from. The party released her, as she promised to give up being a bandit, much to Sheismai's disgruntled attitude as she then went and bathed in the blood of the bandit that knocked her down. The party would then venture into the store room finding many things that would help them. A magic longsword, some potions, food and water.

Eventually crossing the re-tied up rope bridge they'd go to the other side of the caves to find two bandits and an attack dog ready for them. They would take care of the three of them easily dispatching them before entering into the captains quarters to fight off the two leaders and a grunt that was from the caravan raiding party that ran. Only for that grunt to be decapitated by one of leaders an orc barbarian named Dakka. While the other was a half orc cleric named Melta. Ash was able to use his magic to knock Melta back into a torch causing her to ignite on fire keeping her out of the fight for two rounds while Dakka would knock out Yuuway and Sheismai. Dakka would then burn to death as Ash would then launch Dakka back into a stack of boxes and barrels causing the barbarian to die. Ash would help his allies up and they would begin to loot the place finding a strange note hidden in the false bottom a barrel mentioning something about an Golden Orb. The party would then depart the cave taking any journals, notes, and letters off the corpses hoping to garner what kind of mess was going on here. Before eventually setting up camp for a nice long rest.

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That was the first two sessions of the campaign. Lots of stuff happened. Two players missed out last session but they'll be there for this weekend and we'll have a full party. We had a new party member join up on session 2. 

I can't wait for session 3. 

I've wrote up the journals for every NPC that wasn't burned and losing their perishables. Here they are if you'd like to give them a Read. They're very bare bones minimum stuff to help with world building that i do with every humanoid npc to make the world feel alive and lived in. 

I do wonder how my players are gonna handle the weather that will be coming up the rest of the month. Hmmm....