While it would later be revisited in the d20 version City of the Gods for the Dave Arneson's Blackmoor line, the legendary City of the Gods from Dave Arneson's original campaign had been whispered about since it had been mentioned in the First Fantasy Campaign (1977) or perhaps even earlier as a place where many of the original Blackmoor players would see their characters meeting their doom. Even Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax had struggled to face the dangers of this place.

But it was DA3 City of the Gods that would first give full details about the City and its surrounding Valley of the Ancients. TSR and Dave Arneson had seeming overcome some of their differences and the DA series allowed fans to finally learn more about the world of Blackmoor. TSR partnered up Dave Arneson with freelancer Dave Ritchie who authored the modules based on manuscrips provided by Dave who also gave his final approval on DA1-3. Both Arneson and Ritchie were credited on these three modules, unlike DA4 Duchy of Ten which is only credited to Ritchie while still clearly based on details from Arneson. 

This adventure also gave the world more details about the Peshwah Horsemen and their lands, including expanding the Blackmoor world map south for the first time. Early on in the adventure, the PCs are introduced to Bosero, the character originally played by Jon Sider, before they are soon attacked by things that can only be linked to the City of the Gods. Although the module's excellent cover by Doug Chaffee does not really reflect the contents of the adventure, the shameless use of science fiction on a fantasy adventure module, told customers that Blackmoor is a very different place than what you can expect from most Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Indeed, combining sci fi and fantasy elements was one of the hallmarks of Dave's original campaign and could be seen as early as in Supplement II's Temple of the Frog. Zeitgeist Games would later double down on sci fi in Blackmoor campaigns with Clock & Steam decades later.

Item Code: #9191 (DA3)
Title: City of the Gods
Type: Adventure
Author: Dave L. Arneson and David J. Ritchie
Published: 1987
Format: 48-page book w/tri-fold cover, fold-out map

"New Magic... That's what the flying egg has. New magic unlike any ever encountered in Blackmoor. New magic of a type that could give the fledgling kingdom an important edge in the wars that are brewing on its borders. There are only a few minor problems. Like the fact that the magician who piloted the metal egg to one of Blackmoor's southern outposts was killed before he could utter a word. And the fact that Blackmoor's sworn enemies, the monks of the evil and eccentric Order of the Frog, are also interested in the magic represented by the egg. And, most important, the fact that the egg came from the distant and dangerous City of the Gods. Set amidst the blistered salt flats of the Valley of the Ancients, the City of the Gods is a strange and deadly metal metropolis whose powerful guardians do not welcome intruders. Yet it is to this place of deadly menace that Blackmoor's leaders now send a daring expedition - to bargain for aid in the coming wars - or to steal the magic of the gods."

 

The oldest published reference to the City of the Gods is in the First Fantasy Campaign. This adventure proved deadly to many of the player characters from Dave Arneson's campaign and was probably played out shortly after the publication of Dungeons & Dragons. Another group of players who realised the dangers of this fabled location were none other than Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, as chronicled by Rob Kuntz in Oerth Journal #6. It was clear at the time that Gary wanted to explore the idea of combining fantasy and science fiction. In 1980, TSR published the adventure Expedition to Barrier Peaks. Written by Gary Gygax, it was a different, but similar concept. It was the 1987 TSR module DA3 City of the Gods (Dave Arneson & David Ritchie) that would finally make the adventure available to D&D players worldwide. 

In 2008, Dave Arneson's company Zeitgeit Games decided to revisit the adventure. Written by Harley Stroh, the d20 version is not a mere rehash of the 1987 module, but explores other parts of the crashed spaceship that is at the heart of the adventure. It also expands the lands surrounding the City of the Gods greatly. To me this will remain one of the highlights of the d20 Blackmoor line. 

The back cover reads:

Deep in the heart of the harsh landscape of the Valley of the Ancients lies Blackmoors greatest mystery an accursed place the local desert tribes know only as the City of the Gods. One royal expedition to the site has already failed to return and now the heroes must traverse unforgiving wilds and dangers untold in search of truth and if they can survive the journey the glory of a lifetime. Whet your blades and ready your spells heroes for the greatest of trials awaits! Welcome to City of the Gods one of the most infamous and enduring mysteries in the long and storied history of Dave Arnesons Blackmoor. Designed for four to six characters of 9th to 10th level this epic adventure is sure to challenge even the bravest heroes be they peasants or nobles warriors or wizards. Will you succeed where so many others have failed or will you too fall victim to the unearthly perils that lie in wait in the forgotten City of the Gods?

Title: City of the Gods

Author: Harley Stroh 

Executive Producers: Dave Arneson & Dustin Clingman

Editor: C.A. Suleiman

ISBN: N/A

Pages: 108

Publishers: Zeitgeist Games & Code Monkey Press (2008)

Purchase a copy at DrivethruRPG (currently for 3$) - This blog does not use affiliate links.

Do you have a copy of this adventure? Have you adventured near the City of the Gods?

Read more about City of the Gods at The Comeback Inn,

-Havard

 Last week two classic Blacmoor adventures once again became available as print on demand releases from Wizards of the Coast. 

The two adventures in question are part of the series of modules published by TSR between 1986-1987. Labelled the DA series or Dave Arneson series, the adventures were written by Dave Arneson and David Ritchie for the BECMI edition of D&D. Four DA modules were published and it is interesting to see that the two first to make it back to Print on Demand format from DrivethruRPG are two that focus on some of the most iconic adventure locations of Dave Arneson's setting.

You can get both modules as PDF or in Print Format from DrivethruRPG by following these links:

DA2 Temple of the Frog

DA3 City of the Gods

I also hope that WotC will release DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor soon. Not only was this the first module in the series, but it also serves as a great introduction to the setting. 

In any case, it is really cool to see these adventures back in print. Are you planning to pick them up, dear readers? 

-Havard

Over four seasons of D&D adventures, Blackmoor the MMRPG has explored most of the plotlines ever detailed in the setting. It is not surprising that it would also have its own take on perhaps the deadliest of all of the adventure locations from Dave Arneson's campaign. I wrote about the early adventures Dave Arneson ran with the City of the Gods here.

Although hints to the City of the Gods go back to Supplement II's Temple of the Frog and the references to the Valley of the Ancients in the First Fantasy Campaign, this region was first explored in published form with DA3 City of the Gods. When Dave Arneson's company Zeitgeist Games got the lisence to do Blackmoor for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, they published a new version of the City of the Gods for that edition. The MMPRG also served to promote the Zeitgeist Games product line so it is not surprising that the time would eventually come for the Valley of the Ancients. This way players could bring their charaters from the MMRPG campaign into this famous adventure location. Over at the Comeback Inn, we are soon approaching the re-release of the last episodes of the MMRPG. Episode 90-L is available now as a free download.

Go here to download the MMRPG adventure!

Let me know what you think! Are you ready to see the remaining adventures of season 4 as well? :)


-Havard

Finally DA3 City of the Gods is available at DrivethruRPG. Third in the series of DA modules, DA3 was that last in the series where Dave Arneson had much actual input. The final module, DA4 didn't even have Dave's name on the cover, although some things in that module must have come from Dave as well. When the module came out in 1987, many people must have been surprised to see the amazing cover by Douglas Chafee, showing a fabulous futuristic city that really sparked one's imagination of what a D&D module could be. The idea of fantasy heroes discovering a crashed spaceship had been explored in S1 Expedition to Barrier Peaks, but Dave Arneson had been matching science fiction and fantasy tropes in his games even before Blackmoor was invented. Stephen Rocheford's character had become central in what would become the Temple of the Frog adventure and the hints provided already in the first published version of that adventure (D&D Supplement II) would finally be revealed in this module.

I was really happy to see DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor become available again because that is such a great introduction to the setting. DA2 Temple of the Frog gave us the most iconic adventure location from Dave Arneson's imagination. Now DA3 City of the Gods really shows us the extremes of the Minnesota gamer's experimentation with the genre. Hopefully it won't be long untill DA4 Duchy of Ten becomes available so that we can have the complete series on PDF format.




More discussion of this article: http://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&p=32564#p32564

-Havard

In case you haven't heard it, Gaz3 The Principalities of Glantri is now available for sale through the DNDClassics store. Two weeks ago, I talked about how Gaz 1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos became the first of the classic D&D Gazetteer series to return in PDF format. Gaz 2 Emirates of Ylaruam has also been made available so it looks like they are uploading them on a weekly basis.


My friend Tim Brannan posted this news on the BECMI Facebook Group with the following comment: "My favorite Bruce Heard book of all time. I know the waterways and streets of Glantri well! LOVE this book and so happy to see it out on PDF."

Written by Bruce Heard, The Principalities of Glantri is generally considered one of the best of the series. While The Grand Duchy of Karameikos probably is the most popular. I personally like Gaz3  even better because it introduced so many new ideas and concepts. Also, the NPC gallery is incredibly fascinating! The style of Gaz3 is more light-hearted than Gaz1, but without taking the humorous elements to extremes such as in the Orcs of Thar. Glantri also interestly enough lends itself very well to a quite dark style of play.

Not taken from the gazetteer, but definitely Glantri!

Gaz 3 is the first in the Gazetteer Series to make strong connections to the Blackmoor modules (DA-series). The incredibly powerful artifact known as the Radience has ties back to the City of the Gods. One of the nobles, Prince Jaggar von Drachenfels claims Blackmoorian ancestry and carries a weapon of Blackmoor Era origins. The module even includes an adventure outline allowing PCs from Mystara to travel back in time to Blackmoor and excecute events that would permanently change the face of the Known World.

Although I only have the hard copy of this book myself, reports say that the quality of the scan is very good. With 3 gazetteers out and more around the corner I think we can truly say that Mystara is back! I heartily recommend this book for any D&D fan. Enjoy!

Image source

More discussion of this article



-Havard

In 1975, Dave Arneson's players launched their first expeditions to the City of the Gods. Did they already at this point consider what bringing high tech artifacts back to Blackmoor would mean for a fantasy world? The DA modules hinted at dark consequences of these events in the centuries following King Uther's reign. The cover of module DA3 certainly sparked the imaginations of many about a sci fi heavy future of Blackmoor.

In 1980 TSR published Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, possibly inspired by Gygax' experiences in the City of the Gods in 1976. Last year I talked about how the two Greyhawk heroes, Robilar and Mordenkainen almost lost their lives in this deadly place. It wasn't until 1987 that the City of the Gods became accessible to the general D&D fans in module DA3.  However, Dave Arneson had been sending his players to the area since 1974. Dave Arneson's company Zeitgeist Games revisited the location in 2008 as part of their D20 line.

The first expedition to the City of the Gods is mentioned in JG's First Fantasy Campaign. Was the City always a space ship? Visitors from futuristic interstellar civilizations had been visiting Blackmoor since John Snider started his Star Empires campaign in early 1973 placing Blackmoor on his star map. This may have been what first brought the science fantasy twist to Arneson's campaign and may have been the direct inspiration for the City of the Gods.

What we do know is that the City of the Gods was a deadly place. Mordenkainen and Robilar were lucky enough to escape the City alive. The first group exploring the area were not so lucky. The Wizard of the Woods (Pete Gaylord) and a Peshwa Nomad Hero (Dale Norman) lost their lives on this expedition.  Those who did return did not look back.



-Havard

Discussion of this article.

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

Although Gary Gygax created Mordenkainen as his first D&D character as late as 1973, I'd like to imagine that the character he played in his first RPG adventure was a sort of Proto-Mordenkainen. This first game I am referring to is of course the Blackmoor game session of the winter of 1972, when Dave Arneson and David Megarry went to Lake Geneva, which I wrote about yesterday.

According to Rob Kuntz, this game included both dungeon adventure and outdoors exploration. From what Kuntz describes, tt seems like the experience must have made a considerable impression on Gary: 

"After the initial Blackmoor adventure events proceeded at a furious pace.  Phone calls to Dave.  Letters exchanged between the two.  During this time EGG noted that he had begun crafting a “dungeon” setting similar to Dave’s Blackmoor. About two weeks after this adventure, Gary handed me a slim manuscript which had been mailed to him by David.  I sat down and read for the first time the rules that David had used during it."

This was of course the beginning of D&D, but it was not the last time for Gygax and Kuntz to play with Arneson as the Dungeon Master. In 1976, those three sat down in TSR's Dungeon Hobby Shop. The two players used their legendary characters Mordenkainen and Robilar. By now, both characters were incredibly powerful and Dave had to limit the number of magical items they were allowed to bring to the table. Their destination was the City of the Gods. Dave Arneson's core group had already made several expeditions to this fabled city, most of which had been disasterous for the player characters. Kuntz and Gygax must have felt confident in their high level characters and played quite recklessly, as Dave Arneson later recalled:

"In this expedition there was a rather indiscriminate and widespread use of lightning bolts which could be observed from a multitude of points throughout the city. The use of such pyrotechnics from a very early stage in the adventure was risky to say the least and was one of the reasons that more and more wandering monsters were encountered thereafter. As the adventurers spent more and more time within the city confines they made little or no attempt to conceal themselves or their activities and so more roving creatures were drawn to their ramblings."
-Dave Arneson, Oerth Journal #6

This lack of caution nearly cost Robilar his life. Fortunately Mordenkainen was able to save his friend and the two were among the few to have survived exploring this deadly place. Details of this adventure can be found in Oerth Journal #6.


Image Source.

-Havard

Rob J Kuntz has been posting some interesting thoughts on the movies that inspired Dave Arneson on his blog. I have previously mentioned another post by RJK about Arneson's combining of science fiction and fantasy. I always love reading about RJK's memories of Dave. I think the first thing I read where he talks about the D&D co-creator is the recollections from Robilar's Journey to the City of the Gods. It is no wonder that Arneson refers in the FFC to King Robert I of Geneva as the ruler who once founded Blackmoor.

I especially liked the map Kuntz put up about where everyone lived in Lake Geneva in relation to eachother. I'm stealing it:





-Havard

Robert J. Kuntz has an interesting article over at his Lord of the Green Dragons blog where he is talking about his upcoming project, the Machine Level. In the article mr Kuntz suggests that Arneson was likely the first DM to blend the elements of science fiction and fantasy in his City of the Gods adventures. According to Kuntz, this was something that Gygax, Arneson and Kuntz himself were all interested in at the time. Kuntz goes on to mention various interesting examples of this in the early days of D&D.

He also goes on to credit the creation of the Shambling Mound to Arneson, a creature Gygax and Kuntz first encountered when they journeyed to the fabled City of the Gods with Arneson behind the DM screen, as chronicled in Oerth Journal#6.


I am looking forward to seeing RJK's Machine Level!





-Havard

Fans of the so called Golden Age D&D from the 1970s and early 80s sometimes criticizes later era game material for suffering from a need to create too much coherence, explaining much more than is really neccessary in order to run a fun game. The downside of this is of course that it detracts from what is important and even takes away some of the mystery.

Now, this is not normally my view of things. I am very interested in early age D&D, but I am also a fan of many of the products that were made in later decades. When looking at the various versions of City of the Gods, I am beginning to think that they were right. The best source to Dave Arneson's original version of City of the Gods is Rob Kuntz' account from the game Dave ran for him and Gary Gygax. The FFC also has references to the City of the Gods, but is fairly vague on the details.

While the 1970s sources are clear on the fact that the City of the Gods is a source of technology, it is Ritchie and Arneson's DA3 which introduces the space ship and its crewmembers. Granted, Stephen Rocklin goes all the way back to Supplement II, but even there it is unclear to whether St. Stephen is from space, another dimension or what. The vagueness of the nature of the city makes it more mysterious, leaving room for each player and DM to figure things out for themselves.




Image Source

-Havard

Reading some of the interesting stuff about the dwarves and gnomes of the Dwimmermount campaign posted on Grognardia a few weeks back made me want to write something similar for Blackmoor. However, I then realized that something has has been bothering me for a while.


While the Dwarves of Blackmoor are mostly standard dwarves with not much to differentiate them from dwarves of any other D&D setting, the one thing that perhaps makes them stand out a little is their creation of huge mechanical devices. Not that this doesnt occur in other settings too of course, but since technology is such an important theme in the Blackmoor setting, the fact that dwarves are building such equipment suggests that it is a more prominent feature for the dwarves too, than in other worlds where it could be just one of many schticks.

But yeah, something has been bothering me about all of this. As I mentioned in the article about the movie Outlander; once you introduce a Space Ship into the campaign, it ought to mean something. In my opinion, the origin of all technology (beyond medieval level) should be the City of the Gods.

I was hoping that ZG would follow this pattern and was a little disappointed when, looking through the Clock & Steam has no mention of City of the Gods, but rather traces Clockwork technology back to Gnome inventors like Galen Lato (inventor of the first telescope) and Artigan (Inventor of the first clockwork construct). A dwarf, Borgrim Stonehammer, was responsible for the first use of  Steam Power.

However, the question that remains unanswered is; what triggered the whole thing? Perhaps Gnome clock makers had been experimenting a little on their own for centuries, but something must have sparked ideas that triggered a sort of Industrial Revolution? It then occurred to me; the dwarves must have had access to a major find from the City of the Gods. Some sort of Area 51. I could see the dwarves, taking in a few selected gnome Alchemists into the deepest of caves under Mount Uberstar. What does this dwarven Area 51 contain? Perhaps an explorer type vessel used by one of of St. Stephen's allies, possibly even a kidnapped alien? Or simply various technological artifacts stolen from the Temple of the Frog, and collected for studies? Whatever it is, it must be something that had a serious impact on Dwarven society. Something that made the Dwarven and Gnomish sages make leaps in their technological advances that they would never have without it.

Recently, the Dwarven alliance between King Uther and Regent Oberstar Kazakhum (played by Walter Oberstar) meant that the clever minds of the Blackmoor University got some insight into dwarven secrets. While the Dwarves undoubtedly still keep some things to themselves, this cooperation holds promises of an even more incredible development for the future.





-Havard

With all the recent talk about Traveller on Sandbox of Doom , Grognardia and other blogs this month, I return to the topic of Science Fantasy in Blackmoor.

DA3 revealed the secret of the Valley of the Ancients. A crashed space ship right there in Dave Arneson's fantasy setting! By the time that DA3 was published, this was hardly new though. Gary Gygax' S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks had been published in 1980, likely inspired at least in part by Gary Gygax' own experiences as a player exploring the City of the Gods in Arneson's game. Much later the concept of a crashed space ship in a D&D setting would return in Tales of the Comet.


DA3 was not the first appearance of a space ship in Arneson's game however. It is not unlikely that it all began with a board game called Star Empires.  In 2008, Dave Arneson reported:

John [Snider], the author, was another of the original [Blackmoor] group. He had outlined a whole series of books and maps.

Blackmoor was incorporated into John Snider's Science Fiction Campaign. Greg Svenson Explains:

My recollection is that it was a crossover from our parallel "Star Empires" campaign that John Snider was running (from early 1973 to late 1974 or so, when John went into the Army). There was an RPG component to "Star Empires" which we were also playing, but TSR never published it. We had several encounters with scout ships from the neighboring galactic empires before the world Blackmoor is on was quarantined by the local galactic government, I can't remember which empire controlled it.

 The spaceship from DA3 was the FSS Beagle, an exploratory vessel of the Galactic Federation, commanded by Captain Bork Riesling. DA3 revealed that St. Stephen of the Temple of the Frog hailed from this vessel, answering a question that had been asked since the publication of D&D Supplement II, where St. Stephen had first made his appearace to the common D&D fan. In Supplement II, his origins had simply been explained like this:

This fellow is not from the world of Blackmoor at all, but rather he is an intelligent humanoid from another world/dimension.

 However, Captain Riesling and St. Stephen may not have been the first aliens to visit Blackmoor. John Snider's Star Empires game quickly affected the Blackmoor campaign. Greg Svenson has the following information on the alien races involved:

 There were eight major empires. Three were humanoid empires with one each of ursoid (bears), feline (cats), avian(birds), amoboid (amobas) and icthioid (fish). There were also a variety of minor empires with just a couple of worlds inhabited by exotic races (along with the normal ones above) [...] We had encounters in Blackmoor with both human and avian scouts (Scott Belfry ran the avian empire). I remember someone getting a 'magic cape' that allowed the wearer to fly (the avians wings were no longer functional, so they created alternate ways to fly). The Blue Rider's armor was a suit of powered Battledress. I was running a galactic empire controlled by a race of ursoids

 

Unfortunately, Blackmoor proved to be a dangerous place for little aliens. Svenson reports that the Star System from the Star Empire's campaign in which Blackmoor had been placed was considered to be a risky place to visit:

[The Star System]was almost immediately quarrantined due to the loss of several scout ships from two empires, one human and one avian...

-Havard