Game designer Robert S. Conley just launched a new Kickstarter called Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches and it has already reached its funding goal. Rob is a long time Blackmoor fan and I first got in contact with him when he was doing an incredible series of articles on his Bat in the Attic Blog where he analysed Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign. Furthernmore, Rob has always been supportive of my work. This post is not sponsored (as is nothing on this blog), but rather I am doing this because I believe in what Rob is doing.

He later released the Blackmarsh setting which while its clearly Rob's own original creation, bears heavy inspiration from the sources that he loves and admires from the 1970s era D&D. The new Northern Marches Kickstarter promises to be an expansion on Blackmarsh. Again, we will get to see amazing hex maps and interesting locations to explore. 

The Living Sandbox concept also sounds interesting with techniques that promise to create a world that feels lived in. I am curious to learn more about this.

Check out the Kickstarter.

-Havard

I recently recieved news of this new adventure inspired by Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. It is written by Carlos Lising of CASL entertainment. The module is announced as the official module of DaveCon, a convention to commemorate Dave Arneson's legacy next month and will presumably be sold or given out to attendees of the convention. The convention has drawn some criticism for not involving Dave Arneson's family, but has been described as a passion project of its founder Victor Dorso.

 

"DC1 Compliant with OSRIC. 

Dungeon Module DC1 Across Black Moors. By carlos a.lising. An adventure for characters levels 3-5

Long has the bizarre and potent entity known as Orrg of Oot held sway over the Black Moors, controlling the common folk of the land beneath the weighty chains of thralldom and a silent, pervasive terror. Despite its fearsome power, however, an opportunity to fight back against this alien foe has made itself known. Will your heroes strike a blow for freedom on behalf of the Black Moors - or will the Oorg of Oot continue its reign of tyranny over the land forevermore?

This module was the official adventure from DaveCon 2022. It contains a challenging scenario and eight pre-rolled, playtested tournament characters. DC1 is a complete adventure in and of itself and may thus be used for competition among players (pr groups of players) or as a non-scored adventure included in the cnotext of an ongoing game. Also included are referees's maps, notes, encounter descriptions for players, and a background scenario allowing the module to be easily placed withing a pre-existing campaign."

If you haven't done so already, check out Rob Conley's Blackmarsh Setting! I mentioned this project a few weeks ago, and now you can get it too. You can read a review of it over at Zombiecowboy's Gameblog. Conley also has an interesting article about how Blackmarsh was published on his Bat in the Attic Blog. An interesting read if you are thinking about getting your own old school material published. Rob has done some great things in the past, like the excellent Points of Light setting, so give Blackmarsh a chance!





-Havard

Blackmarsh Cover

According to Rob S. Conley's excellent blog, the Blackmarsh Setting is ready to be released through the Print on Demand company Lightning Source in about a week or so. Blackmoor fans will find many similarities between this setting and Arneson's world. The map for it was created through a process believed to be the same as what Arneson did when coming up with his map for Blackmoor. However, the author is quick to point out that:

"Blackmarsh is a homage to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. But it is not a clone. The elements that it shares are; drawn from a map of holland, has a castle with a dungeon underneath where access is controlled by the elves, an elven forest, vikings roaming around, and there is a larger kingdom to the southeast. Beyond that background, the locales and details are unique to the Blackmarsh setting."

In additon to these elements, Blackmarsh also has the Mountain that Fell, a meteorite that fell from the sky, creating the Smoking Bay, a seeming parallell to the crashed spaceship of Blackmoor.  Conley has previously suggested that the Blackmarsh Setting could be connected to his other projects of the Southlands (From the Points of Light) and the Wild North (published in Fight On #3), both also having some connection to Blackmoor.

Castle Blackmarsh

With Code Monkey Press's Shaerdreath Setting and Dolmen Creative's Destiny6 game running into pre-production problems, could Blackmarsh be the first Arneson Tribute setting to actually get published? still, there is a fine line between homage and IP violation, and hopefully all involved in these projects will be careful.




-Havard