Justin Alexander Running Castle Blackmoor (Alexandrian)

[Havard]

AusJeb posted this over at The Piazza, but might as well repost here:

Justin Alexander has a blog post up on what he learned running Castle Blackmoor with an open table from 2018 - 2020:
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/519...-blackmoor

In this post, he covers:
• Special Interest XP
• Stocking

He will continue in a future post.

His previous entry in this series was posted in November 2020(!).

And this one:

One of the things he did for his campaign was draw a higher-resolution version of the Blackmoor village map after his players struggled to work with the original map.



https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/411...illage-map

My own thoughts:

Always good to see people having fun with Blackmoor.

I don't know Justin Alexander, but I understand that he has been invited as a special guest at some of the Blackmoor conventions. I think he was the person who came up with the term Jaquaysing the Dungeon, based on analysing Jennell Jaquays' way of building dungeons?

His maps looks quite nice. It is clearly based on the pre-FFC versions of the map. We can see Dragon Rock going by its older name Serpents Rock. Tonisborg (with a different spelling) was replaced by Vestfold in the FFC. It seems Alexander have included both towns on his map? Perhaps a nod to Greg Svenson's recent publication? On most of Arneson's maps the South Road turns west and leads to Vestfold, just like the road leading from the Troll Gate, but perhaps Alexander's Blackmoor has both Tonisborg and Vestfold in two very differnt parts of Blackmoor? Bramwald is spelled Gramwald, which I think is a mistake by Alexander. It is a bit hard to make out on the scan I have of the old map, but anyone who is familiar with other Blackmoor material should be able to make it out. The Silver Dragon Inn was renamed "Town Inn" in the FFC, but this name does appear on the original map.

A few other locations are not shown on this map.


Other thoughts on the map and articles by the hard core fans here?

-Havard

[Yaztromo]

Tonisborg (with a different spelling) was replaced by Vestfold in the FFC. It seems Alexander have included both towns on his map? Perhaps a nod to Greg Svenson's recent publication? On most of Arneson's maps the South Road turns west and leads to Vestfold, just like the road leading from the Troll Gate, but perhaps Alexander's Blackmoor has both Tonisborg and Vestfold in two very differnt parts of Blackmoor?

This is an interpretation as good as any other interpretation, and in a coherent campaign it may even work better, although personally I do prefer Havard's interpretation, endorsed this way by Greg:

Havard, I like your interpretation of things.  Tonisborg was originally in the same location as Vestfold, so you could make it a ruin nearby or even put the ruins of Tonisborg under Vestfold.  Or making the Barleycorn Island village built upon the ruins of Tonisborg would work, too.  I am ok with however you want to do it.

but it may be just because in my head I toyed with it for longer time... and probably also because I have such a great, great respect for Greg...