A New Thonia Sourcebook (Dave Arneson Game Day 2020)!

 

Dave Arneson Game Day 2020 is here! October 1st is a great opportunity to celebrate gaming all around the world! 

FEATURES

Here are today's featured contributions:

• The Stone Mask: A cursed item linked to the Temple of the Frog, created by Zeromaru X. Read all about it here.
• Do you love Halflings, Docrae and Gnomes? Boddynock at the Gnomish Embassy has an article every day this week. Today's article oresents information for converting the short races of Blackmoor to the D&D 5th Edition Rules. Check it out here.  

For more details on what's going on, don't forget to visit the following places on the Internet:

• The Comeback Inn Blackmoor Week Preparation Thread
• The Piazza Blackmoor Week Preparation Thread
• Blackmoor Fans on Facebook

FREEBIES

• Thonia: Province of Bleakwood Sourcebook. This is the third installment in the Comeback Inn series of sourcebooks detailing the ten provinces of the Thonian Empire. This sourcebook has callbacks to such Dave Arneson creations as Adventures in Fantasy and The First Fantasy Campaign as well as tributes to Mike Carr and others. Get the PDF here.
• Blackmoor Rampart, the MMRPG Newsletter #13 and 14 are now available here.

WHY DON'T YOU JOIN US?

Anyone can participate in Dave Arneson Game Day. If you have written something that I haven't noticed, ran a game and posted some pictures or a game report, let me know by posting in one of the forum links above. 

Go here to join Dave Arneson Game Day!

-Havard

Hobbits of Blackmoor

"...we could call [Mello] a Hobbit back in those days, before the Tolkien family objected)." -Greg Svenson

Like most D&D worlds, Blackmoor has its share of halflings. In the D20 line there are two races of Halflings, one type simply called halflings and the second, the Docrae. The regular Halflings are, true to the source quite similar to those found in Tolkien.

Dustin Clingman has the following to add:

"Well they are much more prone to travelling than Tolkien's hobbits. In fact, some of the largest distributors in Blackmoor are owned and operated by halflings. That doesn't jive with Tolkien. I would also suggest that they are more prone to a 'larger view' of the world rather than just focusing on Booh and South Pim."

The main halfling settlement, Booh, is a Large Town of 2700 inhabitants. The town is dwarfed by the huge and ancient watch tower which gives the town its name. The town is a typical halfling one, with beautiful gardens and in no short of foodstuffs and fermented beverages. A large system of caves is found beneath Booh, used by the Halflings to store food and for military purposes. The largest population of Docrae has also settled there. Ramshead is another Halfling Town (pop 1000), where Philo is Sherrif. South Pim has also been reported to have halfling inhabitants. IMC Kenville is also a Halfling town, just because the name sounds a bit Halfling-ish.

The most famous Halflings are Philo Holbytyn, Mello Feathertoes and Timothy Curlytop. Mello, originally played by Rick Johnson, is described by Greg Svenson as the "mightiest of halflings". Known as the worlds tallest halfling, he worked closely with the Blue Rider (played by Bill Heaton) and the two worked hard to prevent Nichol's merchant Mafia from taking over Blackmoor Town in their days.

Currently, there is an ongoing discussion about Blackmoor's halflings in this Piazza thread.








(Illustration by ballerinakgurl)

-Havard

THE NEW LANDS - THE FUTURE OF BLACKMOOR?

In the Code Monkey Publishing press release of November 16th, Robert Reed mentioned a contingency plan CMP has had in place for the last two years should the WotC lisence not be renewed.

That backup plan is 'The New Lands', a new setting with ties to Blackmoor. Apparently, seeds to the setting have been planted in earlier products and the MMRPG.

What do we know about this new setting? the CMP Press Release suggests it will contain various material produced for Blackmoor during the ZGG era which does not belong to WotC. Robert Reed mentioned Classes, the Docrae Race, and Skelfer Ard the magician of legend.


Fan discussions since then have raised concerns about splitting the campaign between two settings. Also the name "New Lands" has been criticized for being too generic.

Furthermore, ZGG's subsequent press release revealed that things were a bit more complicated. What is owned by WotC and what is owned by ZGG is not clear at the moment it seems. Also, relations between ZGG and CMP are unclear as their agreements also expire early next year.

Will the New Lands setting be the future of Blackmoor? Will it ever see the light of day? Only time will tell!













Havard