Where does the MMRPG fit in the Timeline?

[CawmeKrazee]

So I've been doing a lot of reading over all the Blackmoor material. Hopping from thing to thing as I have just finished the script for the lore series first episode (now just gathering art). 

and I kind of found something odd. 

There is an adventure path that leads up to another episode called "Temple of the Frog". While I've not had the time to read this side by side of DA2. Are these meant to be the same adventure but updated for that edition of DnD? Or is this meant to be further down the TL? 

From my understanding if we are to try and fit the DA series into the ZTG timeline the DA series would happen around 1024-25. Meaning this adventure path would be before The Blackmoor Campaign setting adventure Ties That Bind which is in 1030. 

So where would this all place? How does the WoTC adventure of Return to The Temple of the Frog fit into all of this? 

Just trying to make sense of everything as I'm a lore junky and want to have things right. I know that the Temple of the Frog has been done many times over the years. from Supplement 2 to DA2 to MMRPG and to/from WoTC. So I'm just trying to understand if each adventure is supposed to be a different point in the timeline of Blackmoor or what.

[Havard]

So I've been doing a lot of reading over all the Blackmoor material. Hopping from thing to thing as I have just finished the script for the lore series first episode (now just gathering art). 

and I kind of found something odd. 

There is an adventure path that leads up to another episode called "Temple of the Frog". While I've not had the time to read this side by side of DA2. Are these meant to be the same adventure but updated for that edition of DnD? Or is this meant to be further down the TL? 

From my understanding if we are to try and fit the DA series into the ZTG timeline the DA series would happen around 1024-25. Meaning this adventure path would be before The Blackmoor Campaign setting adventure Ties That Bind which is in 1030.

So where would this all place? How does the WoTC adventure of Return to The Temple of the Frog fit into all of this?

Yes, I can see this being confusing.

This is more or less as close to the official timeline that I have been able to work out

995-1000 First Fantasy Campaign Season
1025 - DA modules
1030 - ZG/D20 Blackmoor
ca 1045 - Return to the Temple of the Frog (a few decades after the Temple was destroyed).
1299 - Age of the Wolf
ca 2000 - Great Rain of Fire. Destruction of Blackmoor. Rafiel becomes a divine being.
Ca 5000 - The Comeback Inn discovered by adventurers who are sent back in time.

When Dave Arneson and Dustin Clingman decided to launch the d20 Blackmoor line through their company Zeitgeist Games, they announced to things that might have made more sense back then than they ended up doing:

1) the d20 Blackmoor line would take place 5 years after the DA modules
2) The DA modules were assumed not to have been played out yet, because ZG wanted to make their own versions.

This leaves us with an odd situation where all this tension has been built up in Blackmoor in 1025 and then virtually nothing happens in the following 5 years(!). Thre Afridhi and still occupying the Duchy of Ten and making ready to invade Blackmoor. St. Stephen is still luring around the Temple of the Frog. Etc etc.

Just trying to make sense of everything as I'm a lore junky and want to have things right. I know that the Temple of the Frog has been done many times over the years. from Supplement 2 to DA2 to MMRPG and to/from WoTC. So I'm just trying to understand if each adventure is supposed to be a different point in the timeline of Blackmoor or what.

I think the best way around this is to say that the events of the DA modules was played out, but that those situations were not fully played out. Perhaps Blackmoor did send agents to the Duchy of Ten which halted an Afridhi invasion, but Toska Rusa was not killed. Similarly, heroes may have rescued Lady Rissa Aleford from the Temple of the Frog (she is not in the d20 Temple of the Frog), but St. Stephen survived and the temple was not destroyed.


The MMRPG was considered non-canonical, but those authors did such an amazing job with that line that I think it is worth recognising their contributions. The MMRPG basically incorporated the d20 Modules into their season storylines. As you say, the MMPRG starts in 1030.

There were four seasons of the 3E MMRPG. I am not sure if we could have one season per year, or if it makes more sense to stretch things out a bit?

The last few modules of the MMRPG dealt with building up to the dramatic events that dealt with the Age of the Wolf. The main 4E Blackmoor book is set in 1030, but the plan was to release a series of 4E Blackmoor books in the Age of the Wolf setting.

-Havard

[CawmeKrazee]

So if my understanding is right.  

Supplement 2 and FCC happens 995-1000. 1st temple of frog
25 years later the DA series happens. 2nd temple of frog
5 years later the D20/ZTG books 3rd temple of frog?
Somewhere in there with the mmrpg  a 4th temple of frog happens either within that same year or a year later. 

Seasons 1-3 of the mmrpg is happening

Then year 1045. 45 years from the first temple of frog WoTC does Return to Temple of The frog. 

Season 4 of the mmrpg happens after return to the temple of the frog. Leading towards Age of The Wolf. 


Am i right or getting things mixed up?

[Havard]

So if my understanding is right.  

Supplement 2 and FCC happens 995-1000. 1st temple of frog
25 years later the DA series happens. 2nd temple of frog
5 years later the D20/ZTG books 3rd temple of frog?
Somewhere in there with the mmrpg  a 4th temple of frog happens either within that same year or a year later. 

Seasons 1-3 of the mmrpg is happening

Then year 1045. 45 years from the first temple of frog WoTC does Return to Temple of The frog. 

Season 4 of the mmrpg happens after return to the temple of the frog. Leading towards Age of The Wolf. 


Am i right or getting things mixed up?

the MMRPG adventures are not separate from the d20 modules. Rather, the d20 module and the MMRPG version are the same thing. You need the published Temple of the Frog in order to run the MMRPG episode. 

Not sure if season 4 needs to happen after Return of the Temple of the Frog? 

WotC did not coordinate that release with ZG. 

-Havard

[aldarron]

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?