Recaps & Roundups: JG37 The First Fantasy Campaign part 3

There's a whole section on Blackmoor town and castle. It's said to have a population of about 1,000 peasants, plus 100 soldiers, 100 elves, and a bunch of others (wizards, trolls, a dragons, etc.).  Blackmoor was described by Gary Gygax in one of the earlier D&D books (possibly D&D Vol. 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure) as a "one-horse town", and I suppose that by the standards of other fantasy cities it is rather small.  In terms of resources it's rich in iron ore and coal, and the main form of livestock is a large type of bison.

The current ruler is Baron Fant, who was placed in charge of the castle after the first invasion by the Egg of Coot. His biggest ally is Sir Jenkins, who rules the northernmost area of the Great Kingdom.  He was a former bandit, but achieved great honours after the first Coot invasion, and married Fant's cousin to strengthen the alliance (Fant also married one of Jenkins' relations.)

Blackmoor Castle itself is said to have been built during the third year of the reign of Robert I, "King of all Geneva", primarily as a defense against the barbarians from the north.  (The mention of Geneva I take as a reference to the wargaming groups of Lake Geneva in the real world; in universe I suppose it means the Great Kingdom).  No exact time frame is given for when the castle was built, but the moat surrounding it was created some 400 years ago by a Wizard named Pissaic.  The castle was taken during both invasions by the Egg of Coot, but in both instances it was retaken.

One of those instances happened about 40 years ago, during the Second Coot Invasion.  The Keep's ruler at the time, Baron Ra-all the Wise, was promoted to King of Vestfold, and Blackmoor was placed under the rule of someone known as "the Weasel".  Blackmoor was besieged by barbarians, and the Weasel decided to try to negotiate a truce.  The barbarians sent ten delegates, but through magic unleashed by a wizard, the delegates transformed into hideous creatures and slaughtered the inhabitants of the castle.

Near the Blackmoor walls there are seemingly bottomless pits that connect to underground caves that riddle the area, leading to the netherworld and the dungeons beneath Castle Blackmoor. 

About five miles northwest of Blackmoor is a ruined temple that once belonged to the Dark Lords of the Egg of Coot. It was razed about 500 years ago.  In the middle of the temple is a great orange jewel on a black pedestal; adventurers have taken it several times, but each time those thieves have met a violent end, and the gem has returned to its resting place.  This is expanded on later: the place is also known as the Temple of the Id Monster, the gem is guarded by undead Super-Heroes, and anyone who steals the gem is pursued by the Id Monster, which only they can see. The creature will devour them and take back the gem, and the thief will wake up naked on the town garbage heap having experienced being eaten alive.

Northeast is the abode of the Wizard of the Wood (who was either called Pete, or played by a guy named Pete).  His abode is guarded by illusions of hideous monsters, a trio of Ents at the entrance, and a Fire Elemental in the fireplace.  "Pete" apparently died after playing for two years, on a trip to the City of the Gods, but his home is still there.

Not far from there lies the Super Berry Wood, a timeless place where all who enter lose track of time, and don't want to leave (anyone inside must make a save vs. charm person every turn).  The great "Berrium Maximus" grows there, also known as Super Berries, which are the size of pumpkins and have magical properties depending on the season, the phase of the moon, and the maturity of the berry.  Arneson doesn't elaborate further, mostly because his own players haven't figured a lot of this stuff out yet.

Wolf's Head Pass lies to the northeast, leading to forests dominated by Ents and Wood Elves of uncertain allegiance, and then to the southern lands of the Egg of Coot.

The Comeback Inn in Blackmoor has cheap food and lodgings, and is apparently a good place to find rumours, but it has a magical charm that prevents those inside from leaving; only by having someone outside the inn pull the person wanting to leave through the door can place be escaped.

Details are then given about Blackmoor Castle itself. It has a basement and five floors.  Many of those rooms are said to be haunted.  There is the ghost of Baron Alvarez, who was killed by barbarians, and whose appearance foretells doom. The Lady of Lust is fated to take any man who wanders into her grasp (apparently she was cursed for being an "uncooperative wife" which is uhhhhhhh uncomfortable, let's say).  There are ghosts of plenty of other former rulers, most of whom are scary but harmless.  A Lord Alfred was caught by his wife with a serving wench, and the gruesome beheading she gave him is replayed in one room.  A former ruler known as Balfred the Bald kept a "jungle beast" as a guardian; after he was killed by it the room was sealed up, but when the room was reopened, and the beast was gone.  Rumour persists that anyone who has betrayed Blackmoor that enters the room will suffer the same fate as Balfred.  These hauntings give the place quite a bit of flavour, but as far as I can tell the maps don't show where they actually take place.

Recaps & Roundups: JG37 The First Fantasy Campaign part 2

Last week I started reading Dave Arneson's The First Fantasy Campaign, inwhich he sets forth a bunch of details from his Blackmoor game.  It's got far too much content for to cover in a single post, so I've turned this into a series.  let's continue with part 2.

The next section is entitled "Blackmoor's More Infamous Characters", and details some of the PCs and NPCs of significance in the game.

The Egg of Coot is said to have been of human description millennia ago, but now nobody seems to know what it looks like: a mass of jelly, a giant egg, pure energy, a mass of living rock, and a man have all been suggested.  From the description he seems very much like a petulant, power-mad child, who who will go out of his way to crush anyone who gives him even a moment's inconvenience.  (At the risk of alienating certain of my readers, he does sound familiar...)  From other writings, my impression is that he rules the lands to the north of Blackmoor.

The Ran of Ah Fooh was a servant of the Egg of Coot, but left his service when he found himself able to create more perfect spells than the Egg.  The Ran - a 10th lever fighter and magic-user - is logical to a fault, and one hundred percent convinced of his own perfection.  He's renowned for his dragon breeding pens, and is also building up an army of zombies/androids.

There's a bunch of stuff in both of the previous entries about these villains running spell workshops that churn out spells.  The Egg's spells have a failure rate of 30% or more, while the Ran's spells have a failure rate of just 15%.  It seems like anyone can use these spells, as long as they are shown how.  I guess they are like D&D scrolls, with no class restrictions.

Gin of Salik is one of the greatest wizards in the world, and a renowned ladies man, who travels from place to place to woo the most beautiful women.  If he doesn't get his way, he devastates the region with spells and turns the one who refused him into a loathsome creature with a spell.  I suspect a teenage player might have been playing this charming character.

Marfeldt the Barbarian is a seemingly invincible warrior, who is said to have been created a year ago by a wizard that he promptly slew.  He's said to have wrecked several kingdoms to the east, and to be responsible for the upheaval in the Great Kingdom (that's a busy year...).  In addition to being an incredibly ruthless Conan knock-off, he seemingly has the power to infect others with his own mindset; anyone in his presence for more than a few turns will assume his mental characteristics, and can only be cured by a Wizard.

This description is followed by an account from the "archives of Rhun", in which Marfeldt rose through the military ranks of that country, leading it to victory against his enemies but leaving it so devastated that he himself was able to kill Rhun's Duke and entire army single-handedly.  (There is something of a charming absurdity to a lot of this material, but I also feel like it comes with a large dose of "you had to be there".)

The Duke of the Peaks is a perennial turncoat in the wars between the Egg of Coot and the Duchy of Ten, switching sides pretty much any time his forces come under threat.  The only reason his lands have never been conquered is that they shower any invaders with debauchery, and any garrison left there is subsumed into the population within a fortnight.  This doesn't apply to Marfeldt, who rolled through and killed a third of the population because he was disgusted by their wantonness.

The Blue Rider was formerly William of the Heath, who became the Blue Rider after finding a magical sword, plate armor, and a fully-armed warhorse (which seems to be highly intelligent, never eats, and runs on lamp oil).  There's an amusing bit at the end that hints that the armour is some sort of machine, and that the Blue Rider wants out but has no way to stop the thing.  Arneson's humour is weird, but I'm starting to dig it.

Mello and some other hobbits inhabit a village at a crossroads to the east of Blackmoor.  He's the lifelong sidekick of the Blue Rider, and if I'm reading this right is taller than him due to maxed ancestry?  A 5'6" hobbit?  Arneson's sentences don't always quite make sense.

The Great Svenny is the First Paladin of the kingdom, and as described seems to be its primary heroic character (despite a certain reluctance to enter the dungeons beneath Blackmoor castle).  Both the orcs and the Egg of Coot have promised rich rewards for his head.

The Bishop of the Church of the Facts of Life doesn't have much written about him as a person; most of the write up goes to his church, which sounds very much like a shrewdly run business.

That's it for this entry.  I think I'm starting to get a feel for Blackmoorand its idiosyncrasies.  Arneson's writing can be a little hard to come to grips with, though; he really needs a good editor, and it's pretty obvious that he didn't have one for this product.

Recaps & Roundups 69: JG37 The First Fantasy Campaign part 1

Released around September if 1977, First Fantasy Campaign was a separate product from Judges Guild's usual bi-monthly subscription service.  It's written by Dave Arneson, and details the development and play of his Blackmoor campaign, literally the "first fantasy campaign of the title.  Since the booklet is 63 pages of very small type, I'll probably tackle this one in multiple installments.

I'll begin with the maps, of which there are two: a black & white judges' map that details the lands of Blackmoor, and a colour map for players that leaves a lot of the details blank.  I'll show the colour map below.

The book opens with a quick "Forward" (a misspelling that seems endemic to old-school RPG products), and move to an introduction by Arneson, where he gives some brief details about the campaign.  There's some interesting stuff in here, the first being that he wasn't the only DM; eventually, other players developed their own castles and dungeons, and there were half a dozen dungeons and upwards of 100 players at the campaign's height.  By that point Arneson was more of a coordinator than an actual DM, which is different from anything I've ever seen or read about in any D&D campaign.

He talks about placing Blackmoor between the Great Kingdom and the evil "Egg of Coot", and using conflicts with those two forces to drive action in the campaign.  The dungeons beneath Castle Blackmoor were originally six levels deep (for ease of generating random locations back before funny shaped dice were available), and used only those monsters available in Chainmail.  Gradually Arneson added more, name-checking gargoyles and giant beetles.

The notion is brought up that in his campaign, players only get XP for spending their treasure, which was a springboard to other adventures: often the items bought would have to be shipped into Blackmoor, and the PCs would accompany the shipment to see that it arrived safely, because they'd lose that XP if the goods were lost.

Combat is described, along with Arneson's use of hit location tables.  It sounds like the complexity of Arneson's system very much depended on the types and number of combatants involved, and that he'd change it up depending on the circumstances.

The intro ends with a somewhat sad note that after only four years Arneson's involvement in Blackmoor is very much reduced.  He says that there are still 20-30 people meeting monthly to play, but that the campaign pretty much runs itself without him.

Blackmoor, the Campaign

This segment begins with a quick description of the Great War between the good guys and bad guys that took up the majority of the third year of the campaign.  (I'm not sure here if Arneson is talking about a real-world year or a game year).  The forces on the evil side include the Egg of Coot, the Duchy of Ten, the Nomads of Ten, the Men of Maus, and the Monk's Vikings.  On the good side are the Earl of Vestfold, the Northern Lords (described as seamen), the Horsemen of Peshwah (from somewhere off the map), Bramwald (dwarves), Glendower, Boggy Bottom, the Wizard of the Wood, the Monks of the Swamp (from Supplement II's "Temple of the Frog" adventure), and the Great Kingdom (off the map to the southeast).  There are also neutral forces, which include Loch Gloomen, the Sage's Tower, the Tower of Booh (hobbits), Blackmoor, the Wizard of Mi-Karr, and the Regent of the Mines (dwarves).  Very few of these names mean anything to me, but I'm hoping that reading this product will give me a better grounding in Arneson's campaign.

It appears that the evil forces were on the offensive early on, taking Blackmoor and other fortifications while the good forces built up their armies.  Good took a pounding over summer, and started whittling down the evil forces in autumn.  By spring of the next year, the good forces were forcing evil into retreat, with more reinforcements on the way.  (It sounds as though Arneson was using some sort of card system to determine the number of points the sides could spend on troops each season, but he doesn't go into detail.)

From there it gets into the resources that each side had available to them, including incomes and the price of different troop types, and this takes up multiple pages.  I thought perhaps I could glean something from the different fantastical troop types available to each nation, but they pretty much just break down by alignment, without a lot of differentiation otherwise.

The next few pages deal with investments that PCs (presumably those at the point where they can build their own strongholds) can make: roads, bridges, canals, hunting, armories, animal breeding, religion, exploration, ship building, farming, fishing, trapping, tourism, land and sea trade, etc.  The time and gold required for all of these ventures is discussed in detail, and it's all pretty handy information to have.  (Apparently it takes over a year to make a longbow, which I had no idea about.)  Some if this gets into levels of minutiae that feel a little too much, though; do we really need to be tracking new arrivals of people down to the individual?  It's a little too granular for my tastes.

Campaign Map Notes

Arneson talks a bit about the development of the campaign map, and the Great Kingdom map also.  Apparently the map of the Great Kingdom was drawn from some old Dutch maps.  He talks about their being a phase of the campaign where the Outdoor Survival map was used, after a "bad scene at Lake Gloomy".  The way this booklet is written seems to assume that the reader is familiar with this material already.  Nothing is introduced, Arneson just mentions players and events with no context.  These things happened, but don't ask me what any of them mean or who the people involved were:

• The area ruled by John Snider was covered in deadly yellow mist, and nobody knows what's going on in there.
• A nomad attack from the Duchy of Ten was wiped out by Svenson and the Sniders
• There was a great peasant revolt that wiped out Monson, badly hurt Nelson, and was then put down by the other players
• An expedition to the City of the Gods, located in a desert south of Monson's area, cost the lives of Nelson and Gaylord.
• Both Sniders were killed in an expedition to the home of Father Dragon, and an offspring took over Richard's holdings.  (I guess Richard is one of the Sniders?)

That's it for this week.  I'm only a dozen pages in, but I don't want to gloss over this stuff, especially where it comes to campaign details.  I've far more familiarity with Greyhawk lore than Blackmoor, and it's something I'd like to rectify.  The way Arneson writes makes it pretty difficult to piece together, unfortunately.