More Blackmoor Blogs!

More people are writing about Blackmoor! Tim Bannock is exploring the Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor over at the Dungeon Crawl blog. Most recently, Dork Lord Dungeon Master has set up his own blog called Adventures in Blackmoor. Only a few entires have yet been posted, but Dork Lord's ideas about a Blackmoor campaign with the Pathfinder system did catch my attention. I am looking forward to seeing how that goes. Is this the beginning of a new wave of Blackmoor blogs? :)
 


Image Source


-Havard

The Oerth Journal

I was pleasantly surprised when it was recently announced that the Oerth Journal is being revived. The Oerth Journal is a Greyhawk periodicle, but should also be of interest to all Blackmoor fans. In particular, #5 which details the Greyhawk version of the Archbarony of Blackmoor, and #6 detailing Rob Kuntz recollections of Robilar and Mordenkeinen's adventure in the City of the Gods, where Dave Arneson also contributed with commentaries. In addition to these articles, the series include many gems and pieces, many of which were authored by notables from the industry's past and present.

The Greyhawk Grognard blog has a nice index of the Oerth Journals issue #1 to 25 which can be a useful starting point. A new website has been set up for the Oerth Jorunal here. You can also go directly to their downloads page.

Currently the new leadership of the Journal are looking for submissions. Find out more about this here.


-Havard

Jeff Berry

Also known as Chirine Ba Kal, Jeff Berry (1956-) was one of the members of MAR Barker's Tékumel group in St. Paul Minnesota around the time when Dave Arneson was running his early Blackmoor games in the same area.

Jeff Berry in Tékumel Outfit

Jeff started gaming in the Twin City area in 1975 and first met Dave Arneson at the University of Minnesota wargame club. When Dave Arneson started his own company, Adventure Games, in the early 1980s, he hired Berry to be his "Tékumel guy." I have previously mentioned how another member of Professor Barker's group, Debora Naffziger also influenced the Blackmoor Setting. 

Yesterday, at the Hill Cantons blog, ckutalik has posted an interesting interview with Jeff, where he among other things talks about his gaming experiences with Dave Arneson:

"Dave was really one of the most creative people I'd ever met, and genuinely the most fun to play with. He was very nice, very genial, and would do his very best to rip your liver out and feed it to you with Tabasco sauce on it. "

Read the entire interview here. Jeff Berry also has his own Q&A thread over at the Comeback Inn Forum where he talks about Tékumel, Dave Arneson, Blackmoor and many other things. He has been a fantastic source of information about the early days of gaming.

Jeff Berry i 2009

Image source: Der Spiegel


-Havard

Blackmoor Reference in the Tomb of Horror Prime

Stormcrow over at the Tombs of Horror Blog, made a pretty interesting discovery the other day. When the original Origins I Tomb of Horrors was sold on eBay, the neat sum of $1526.01 was more than the blogger could afford. The packaged included 1 cover page, 1 map page, 1 character list, 9 pages on the tomb contents and 24 pages of drawings. Fortunately, Stormcrow began to examine the pictures distributed for the auction. They were blurry, but he made out the following:

Click on image to enlarge

 Talking to Stormcrow and Grodog about this, we have become fascinated with the references to Blackmoor and the Egg of Coot. Also, as Grodog pointed out, it is interesting that the Egg of Coot was replaced by Iuz in later versions, perhaps suggesting a link between the Egg and Iuz?

The Highest Hill in the Egg of Coot, most likely means the Highest Hill in the Realm of the Egg of Coot. This would probably be somewhere in the Trolltop Peaks or the Locust Hills. The island east of Blackmoor is also interesting. Could it be a reference to the Isle of Dragons? Possibly linking the Tomb to the City of Father Dragon?


-Havard

The Gods Welcome You: Immortality in the Game

I was just reading Dennis Laffey's blog the other day where he adresses the subject of questing for Immortality. The backround for this is Grognardia's review of the new B/X Companion, where Maliszewski expresses his dislike for the concept of questing for Immortality. Immortality in D&D was conceived by Frank Mentzer in the excellent BECMI line. Questing for Immortality was an option for heroes using the Master Rules, while the final set, the Immortal Rules took the game to a whole new level once that quest was completed. AD&D also had similar conceps of becoming a Demi-God, but only in Frank Mentzer's BECMI could you go all the way.

Dennis Laffey presents various examples of how such adventures have a presedence in mythology. Critics who claim that this should not be handled as part of the standard level progression should take another look at the Master Rules. Reaching Immortality is in no way a direct result of having reached 36th level, but rather a unique undertaking separate from the general level progression and reserved for unique heroes whose adventures will become legends retold for centuries to come.

I think a common pit fall in Internet discussions about D&D is that we end up talking about what a D&D game should be about and what it should not. One things I love about D&D is that it can be anything you want. This is one of the reasons why I prefer RPGs to Boardgames. One of the great things about the BECMI expansions was that it introduced new possibilities to what D&D could be about.

Similarly, we know that Dave Arneson would be open to pretty much any idea that came up in his games, giving rise to the description of his gaming style as "Gonzo". While the subject of ascending to Godhood was not a common theme in Arneson's campaign, Bob Meyer who played the powerful wizard Robert the Bald shared this story:

Personally, I not only survived these adventures, but I acquired enough interesting things to study that I ended up locked away in my tower studying them. This all proved to be my undoing, as I was the first of the original players (and one of only two I am aware of) to reach the highest possible level in David's rules. When I asked David what happened now, he told me that"The Gods welcome me". I lost Robert the Bald to David's control and had to start a new character.

-Havard

Ever wonder who else is reading this?

I once read that TSR had very poor knowledge of who their target audiences were. Recently I've been looking at the stats for this blog, trying to figure out who my audience is. I like the various options blogger.com have added to review the readers. Here's a map showing where the blog readers come from in the world:

Here's a listing by country:

Obviously, there is some margin of error here with random image searches, bots, spammers etc being counted, but it still gives me some idea of where the readers come from. Mainly however, it was just fun poking around with this stuff and seeing what kind of options blogger.com offer.



-Havard

Dave Arneson's XP system

I just read Paladin's interesting article on the XP system in Dragons at Dawn. According to the article, Dave Arneson did not award any experience points for killing monsters or taking their treasure. Instead they were awarded for roleplaying only.

In my opinion XPs are a useful tool in encouraging the players to behave in certain ways. I can think of few players who really need encouraging to go out and kill things and take their stuff. Arneson found a way around that. Worth thinking about for any campaign.

 Image Source



 -Havard

My Very Cool Followers!

Its been nearly two months now since I took my first steps into the blogosphere. I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, but hey people are reading this! :) As of now I have 35 entries posted and 35 followers (36 including myself, hehe)! I am a little humbled by this support though. Will I be able to produce the sort of material you will be interested in reading? I hope so! Some of you are "friends" from various internet communities, but others I have no idea who you are. I am happy that you are here though!

I guess the point of this post is simply to say thank you for reading my blog and all of the comments you have added to my entries! That really makes it worth doing this! :)









-Havard

GETTING REVIEWS!

My German friend Moritz (aka glgnfz), of old shool and Dragonsfoot fame, is now among the followers of this blog. He has been kind enough to make a very nice review of my blog in his own blog, Von der Seifenkiste. Moritz writes:

Gibt's ja nicht! Da schreibt mein norwegischer "Buddy" Havard einene Blog und ich weiß nix davon. Neben dieser Lese-Empfehlung werde ich den Blog natürlich auch in meiner Blogroll ergänzen müssen, denn Havard ist ohne Frage DER Experte für alle Dinge, die die alten TSR-Settings MYSTARA und ganz besonders BLACKMOOR angehen. Der Blog landet direkt auf meiner Leseliste.

Da kann mein Fazit nur lauten: LESEN! LESEN!! LESEN!!!

Thanks alot Moritz! :)

Havard