Mike Carr Will Be a Guest of Honor at EGG Con 2 this year. This was announced today by Gary Gygax' daughter Heidi Gygax Garland in the EGG Con Facebook group. 

I was lucky enough to interview Mike Carr back in 2011 about his role in shaping the creation of D&D as part of Dave Arneson's gaming group playing the first Cleric in the history of our hobby as well as his many other contributions to the history of gaming.

Here's the announcement:

Mike Carr 

Mike Carr began gaming as a teenager in the 1960s in Saint Paul, Minnesota where he met Dave Arneson and Dave Wesely – and became the first-ever Cleric in D&D. Through the International Federation of Wargaming (IFW) he met Gary Gygax, who encouraged him to self-publish his game “Fight in the Skies” through the IFW’s Wargame Inventors Guild. The game was published in 1976 as one of TSR’s first boxed games, and later as “Dawn Patrol” in 1982. At Gary Gygax’s invitation, Mike joined TSR in 1976 and worked there until 1983. At TSR he wrote the B1 Module “In Search of the Unknown,” served as editor for the Monster Manual, Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide, and wrote the Endless Quest book “Robbers & Robots” that sold over 250,000 copies. He also edited Gygax and Arneson’s Napoleonic naval rules “Don’t Give Up the Ship!” and earned credit as co-author. Mike attended the first Gen Con on August 24th, 1968 at Horticultural Hall and after Gary Gygax’s welcoming remarks, ran the first event, a “Fight in the Skies” game. Mike is the only person who has attended every Gen Con and his “Dawn Patrol” game is the only one that has been played there every year. Mike's current project is a rhyming book for children ages 4-9 entitled "Girls & Boys Love Great Big Toys," which he plans to self-publish, preceded by a Kickstarter campaign. The 48-page book features 19 different "great big toys" like monster trucks, hot air balloons, sailboats, motorcycles, snowmobiles and many more, each spanning a two page spread with accompanying rhymes (46 stanzas in all). A retail version will be produced and sold, but the bulk of the books will be donated to charities like Toys For Tots, Ronald McDonald Houses, Bernie's Book Bank, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and others. For information, visit the web site greatbigtoys.com.

If you plan on attending EGG Con, please let me know if you got a chance to talk to Mike or any of the other interesting people sure to be there.

EGG Con 2 is scheduled for July 24-27.

-Havard

 

Next year's DaveCon is still many months away, but we are already learning more details about the event. 

Vic Dorso seems to have clarified that the convention is not just about Dave Arneson, but that "Davecon isn't just about one Dave, its about all the Daves that made RPG gaming great !" 

The 2025 convention will include the following:

Original Blackmoor Players: 

David Megarry , David Wesely, Mike Carr,  Bill Hoyt, Ross Maker

Arneson Alumni: 

Ken Fletcher, Kevin McColl, 

Other Guests of Honor: 

Justin Alexander and Mark Rein-Hagen, Bob World Builder, Baron De Rupp, Grace the World Destroyer,  Heidi Gygax, Eric Garland, Greg Gillespie, Andy Thomas, David Yaeger, David "DJ" Johnson.

Furthermore, DaveCon, via their Facebook page, has offered a discount code for tickets: 

 20% Discount code is good till September 15th only is DiceBreaker.

You can buy the tickets at this site. 

Read more about DaveCon at the official website. 

If you feel like DaveCon is too far into the future, there is always ArneCon happening next month.

Are you going to DaveCon? What are your thoughts about this news? Let me know!

More about DaveCon 2025 at The Comeback Inn Forum

Disclaimers: This blog is not associated with DaveCon or any other commercial endeavour. This is a non-commercial fan site promoting and discussing anything we feel our readers might be interested in learning more about.

-Havard

 The convention known as DaveCon will return for 2023. The convention named after Dave Arneson will take place in Minnesota in April of next year according to organizer Victor Dorso. Special guests for next years convention will include Blackmoor alumni David Wesely, Mike Carr and Bill Hoyt.

In a recent interview at Tabletop Taproom, Dorso talked about his plans for next year's convention with host Tom /Jedion. In the interview, Dorso says that he sees DaveCon as a continuation of the annual Blackmoor games, that the original Blackmoor players held at the gaming store known as The Source following Arneson's passing in 2009. Dorso also talked about how last year's convention with the theme of unification was met with some negativity from various individuals both from Minnesota and others wanting to start a rival convention. He also admits that controversy surrounding Ernie Gygax Jr. may have contributed to these reactions. However, Dorso is optimistic about nex year's convention that will take place at a larger venue. 

Dorso has a great deal of plans for next year's convention and plans on making the event much larger than last years with gaming events, food, beer and other activities, including an app that will let gamers order food and have it brought to their tables. He also stressed that both men and women are welcome at the convention and should feel safe to attend. Children are also welcome as long as they are there in the company of an adult. 

Highlights for next year's convention include Braunstein games with David Wesely and Mike Carr running the classic adventure B1 In Search of Unknown, written by Carr and published by TSR in 1978. Bill Hoyt's Blackmoor Castle model that Dave Arneson used for his games will also be on display at the convention. Many old and new RPGs will be played at Dave Con 2023.

A separate Dave Arneson convention organised by others has been discussed for later this year, but nothing formal has been announced yet. Dave Wesely spoke fondly about his experiences at DaveCon 2022 and says he would gladly participate at both conventions, suggesting that there would be enough interest for two such conventions to the Co-Creator of D&D. 

It has always been the idea of this author to support all things that would honor the gaming legacy of Dave Arneson and the Minnesota Gamers. I think having Mike Carr as a guest of honor along with Wesely and Hoyt puts a much needed emphasis of next years DaveCon as an event in that tradition. 

Further discussion of this article here.

-Havard

 

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.  

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

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

Mike Carr is a name that should be familiar to most Blackmoor fans for a number of reasons. The Gary Con Page on Facebook just posted the following:

"Mike Carr is a member of the Gary Con Old Guard and we are happy to have him and his lovely wife Pat back for GC XI. In case you don’t know Mike’s pedigree; he was a member of the international federation of war gamers (IFW) in 1960’s as a teenager. He created the game “Fight In The Skies” (aka Dawn Patrol) and self-published it at the recommendation of Gary Gygax in 1968. He also co-authored “Don’t Give Up The Ship” with Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax in 1971. He joined the ranks of TSR, Inc. in 1976 at the invitation of Gary Gygax. While at TSR, Mike authored the D&D module, In Search of the Unknown, served as editor for the Monster Manual, Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide and wrote three children’s novels. #garyconxi #dungeonsanddragons #lowg #legendsofwargaming #garycon #mikecarr #FITS #dawnpatrol"

Mike Carr's B1 In Search of the Unknown was TSR's first attempt at publishing adventure modules. It is still surprising to me that early day TSR was reluctant to publish adventures, the notable exception being the Temple of From from D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor.

Mike is also counted among the original Blackmoor players and although his Fight in the Skies group seems to have been somewhat separate from Dave Arneson's group, Mike and his crew were great friends with the Minnesota gamers. Mike created the settings first cleric and is remembered in Blackmoor lore as Bishop Carr. I was lucky enough to get an interview with Mike Carr back in 2010 which you can read here.


Discussion of this topic at The Comeback Inn


-Havard

B10 Night's Dark  Terror is recognized by fans as one of the best adventure modules for the classic (BECMI) edition of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game and is a fan favorite module for the World of Mystara. Set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, the adventure features a combination of dungeon crawling and wilderness exploration. For a long time it was seen as the conclusion of the B series of modules that began with B1 In Seach of the Unknown by Dave Arneson player Mike Carr and B2 Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax.

B10 Night's Dark Terror was published by TSR UK and written by three British game designers Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher. Today, at the Facebook BECMI group Jim Bambra revealed the story of how the module was written and the module's overall design goals:

"Night's Dark Terror was designed to bridge the transition of the Basic Set to the Expert Set. It's goal was to introduce wilderness adventuring in an easy and fun way that would lead players on a clear quest without forcing them down pre-defined paths. The story would drive the players forward as they followed the clues that eventually leads them to the Lost Valley. "

Unlike most D&D adventure modules of the time, this one was written by a team of three experienced designers. So how did they work together as a team and who brought what to the table?

"At TSR UK we'd already written adventures for the D&D game. Graeme Morris had designed X8 Drums on Fire Mountain and CM6 Where Chaos Reigns. I'd cut my teeth on O2 Blade of Vengeance. All three games featured wilderness exploration, so we were well versed in what we needed to do. “Design a great adventure that players would love.” Little did I think that gamers would still be playing it almost 30 years later! Design work was shared between Graeme and myself, with Phil Gallagher involved in many of the brainstorming sessions. I can't exactly remember who did what, but Graeme designed Sukiskyn and the goblin siege; I worked on the Iron Ring and the wilderness encounters, as well as the journey up to Hutaaka and the Lost Valley itself. Having said that it was not that clearly demarcated. Graeme's and my design work is pretty much intermingled throughout. As ideas were shared on this project, the text wasn't always written by the person who had the original idea. Overall, B10 was a collaborative project that was great fun to work on."

Jim Bambra in the couch, middle

The module also included some additional features that were uncommon back then. An early scene in the module is a fairly epic battle of Sukiskyn, where the homestead is being attacked by goblin tribes:

" We also had the opportunity to add the large-scale map of Sukiskyn and the cardboard counters. I was particularly pleased with this as it matches my style of play of using maps and miniatures to keep track of the players and NPCs."

Design by committee is not usually something that comes with positive connotations, but in this case it clearly did work. The TSR UK branch had delivered yet another excellent game product. And yes Jim, we are still playing it all these decades later. Thank you!





-Havard



Image Source:
Jim Bambra (Pumpkin Studios): https://warzone.atlassian.net/wiki/display/wzpedia/Pumpkin+Studios

My good friend and fellow Blackmoor aficionado DH Boggs just wrote an excellent article on the Clerics of Blackmoor over at his blog. Well worth a read. Clerics were the one class that originated in the Blackmoor Campaign. You can also read some more comments by myself and others on this topic over here.

Back in 2011 I wrote a piece on Mike Carr's character in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, Bishop Carr, who might well have been the first Cleric in the history of D&D.


Would you be interested in playing a Cleric in a Blackmoor Campaign?



Image source: http://thesignmaker.deviantart.com/art/Sean-Connery-179541605



-Havard

Darlene Pekul, TSR illustrator and map maker, began answering questions to fans today over at The Piazza D&D Worlds Forum. Perhaps best known for the first published versions of the World of Greyhawk maps, Darlene is happy to get back in touch with her fans after decades: "I feel like I'm a comet in an elliptical orbit on a return journey after 30-years" says the 58 year old artist.

Parts of The Darlene Greyhawk Map

In the Piazza discussion forum thread, she talks about her friendship with other well known former TSR employees such as Joe Orlowski, Dave Sutherland,Jon Pickens, Kenneth Reek and Tim Kask as well as her relationship to game designer and Blackmoor alumni, Mike Carr.

In her first batch of answers to curious fans, she also talks about her first jobs for TSR:

"Among the first jobs I was given to do was to design and produce an outdoor sign for TSR's Williams Street building. I made the sign in the shape of a shield and painted The Dragon on one side and TSR on the other. Although I had earned my BA degree in Art, nobody initially associated me with illustration. I was first and foremost associated with graphics design, happy to receive any freelance work I was given..."

It is going to be interesting to follow this discussion with Darlene and listen to her experiences and see what they tell us about the early days of TSR and the early development of Greyhawk.

Also, make sure to visit Darlene's Facebook Fan Page and her website.


-Havard

One of the most powerful Wizards in the history of Blackmoor is the mysterious Wizard of Mi-Karr. I decided to make use of this character in my Tales from the Vales Campaign. Very little is known about this Wizard who was introduced in the First Fantasy Campaign. Undoubtedly, Dave Arneson named the character after Mike Carr, although it doesnt seem like Mike actually played the character. More details on the origins of Mi-Karr and how I have adapted him to my campaign  can be found here.



Image source


-Havard

I just learned from Paul Stromberg that two Original Blackmoor Players will be at Gary Con next month (March 22-25). Dave Megarry will be refreeing his board game Dungeon! and Mike Carr will be refreeing Dawn Patrol and Don't Give Up the Ship.

Other people who will be at the Convention include Frank Mentzer, Tim Kask, Jim Ward, Skip Williams, Tom Wham, Chris Clark, Harley Stroh, Ernie Gygax and quite a few other people that I would love to meet! Sadly I am stuck in Viking-land. If you go, make sure you send me reports and pictures!

More on this topic here.

-Havard

I have previously talked about game designer Mike Carr on this blog, as he is one of the people who played in Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor group. I did an interview with Mike Carr last year which is available here. When it comes to D&D, Mike Carr is perhaps most famous for B1 In Search of the Unknown.
Just the other day, the Grognardia Blog revealed that there's a 1904 novel called In Search of the Unknown by Robert Chambers, who also wrote proto-Cthulhu stories in the King in Yellow.

 As most of you will know this legendary adventure module tells the tales of the dubious characters Roghan and Zelligar and is set in a place called Quasqueton. Quasqueton, as it turns out is also a place in Iowa:


This factoid and more lore that has appeared on the internet over the years has just been collected by D&D researcher Paleologos in a pdf document called the B1 In Search of the Unknown Sourcebook. The pdf also contains new material by Paleologos and is available through the Zenopus Archives.

If you take another look at the map above, consider the fact that the original C&C Society World was based on a map of North America. Blackmoor was located somewhere in Minnesota. Greyhawk was the equivalent of Chicago. It would not be unreasonable to assume that Quasqueton would exist as Mike Carr's realm in this proto-setting? According to Carr himself, the module is not based on any actual campaign however. Further speculations of B1's connections to Blackmoor may be found here.

It was recently revealed that The Tomb of Horrors was written with both Greyhawk and Blackmoor in mind as possible locations for that adventure. It is now accompanied by B1 as two early era adventures not written by Dave Arneson with close ties to Blackmoor.

-Havard

The first Cleric in the history of D&D was played by original Blackmoor player and former TSR Editor Mike Carr and the character was later known simply as Bishop Carr. Mike Carr was not the only player to have used this class. Another famous example is Richard Snider, when he played Brother Richard - the Flying Monk.  When I talked to Carr last year, he explained that:

"It's true that I did take part in the original Blackmoor campaign and did play the role of a priest, participating in a few dungeon or overland expeditions. [...] I also recall having the ability to cast one or two spells and having the ability to help heal minor wounds, but in retrospect it's obvious my character was low level and not particularly impressive. Since my primary interest was in historical games rather than fantasy games (which is still the case), I didn't play too often and didn't make any progress with that character. It's ironic that I knew both Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax fairly well and enjoyed their company from time to time, but never played much D & D with either of them."

Mike Mornard was another player in Arneson's campaign at this time. Mornard is also unique in the fact that he is the only player to have played in all three of Gary Gygax', Phil Barker's and Dave Arneson's original campaigns. Mornard recalls the origins of the Cleric class designed for Carr's character:

"Ahem. I was there. In CHAINMAIL there were wizards that functioned as artillery. Then there was Dave Arneson's first miniatures/roleplaying campaign. Some players were 'good guys' and some players were 'bad guys' and Dave was the referee. One of the 'bad guys' wanted to play a Vampire. He was extremely smart and capable, and as he got more and more experience he got tougher and tougher. This was the early 70s, so the model for 'vampire' was Christopher Lee in Hammer films. No deep folklore shit. Well, after a time, nobody could touch Sir Fang. Yes, that was his name."

The Vampire Lord, Sir Fang, that Mornard refers to here was actually David Fant's character, who used to be the Baron of Blackmoor. How Baron Fant was turned into a Vampire is a shrouded mystery. The Last Fantasy Campaign suggests that Ran may have been responsible for turning Blackmoor's Baron into an undead lord. My fellow Blackmoor scholar David Ross speculates that it must have happened in the year 998 when the heroes drew the forces of the Egg out of Blackmoor, reclaiming their city:

"Meanwhile, a strong fighter becomes the vampire Sir Fang. This is also the last mention of Fant as a ruling Baron of Blackmoor. Great Vampire Hunt in which Fant is “killed”, but later two dwarves free him and join his undead legion."(-Blackmoor Gazetteer)

Lord Fang was also recruited the Baron's ally, Sir Jenkins, Lord of Glendover, to the ranks of the undead. The appearance of a Vampire lord and an undead legion on the side of evil threatened the balance of the campaign. Mike Mornard recalls how the Cleric class was designed to reestablish this balanace:

"To fix the threatened end of the game they came up with a character that was, at first, a 'vampire hunter'. Peter Cushing in the same films. As the rough specs were drawn up, comments about the need for healing and for curing disease came up. Ta da, the "priest" was born. Changed later to 'cleric'. The bit about edged weapons was from Gary's reading the old stories about Archbishop Turpin, who wielded a mace because he didn't want to shed blood ("who lives by the sword dies by the sword")."

Grognaria also suggest Peter Cushing's role of Dr. Van Helsing as an inspiration for the Cleric class. Since Mike Carr was the first to play this class, it would make sense to assume that his character conformed to the ideas they all had of the class at the time.

Besides battling the Vampire Lord, Mike Carr recalls what was probably the most dramatic adventures of Bishop Carr. It featured one of Blackmoor's most dangerous monsters:

"One of my recollections is one rather disastrous encounter with a balrog where our party had to beat a hasty retreat because we couldn't defeat that particular monster."

Could this have been the battle recounted by Greg Svenson as the Great Svenny's First Dungeon Adventure? It would not be the only time the heroes of Blackmoor were faced with Demons.

Bishop Carr is described in a humorous way in the First Fantasy Campaign, a description which still makes me chuckle today. Dave Arneson's accounts of the Bishop suggests Arneson's fond memories of playing with Carr. While the character was still of very low level when Carr played in the campaign, Arneson promoted him to Bishop of Blackmoor. In DA1, Garamond Bolitho is the Bishop of Blackmoor. Garamond may have succeeded Bishop Carr since DA1 is set 30 years after the First Fantasy Campaign, or they may be one and the same character. David Ross points to both Clerics' friendliness towards the "pagan" elves as a possible indication that they may be the same, but also offers the years 1002-1005 as the period when Bolitho may have replaced Carr as the preceeding Bishop over Blackmoor.


In this series of character profiles, I have earlier described legendary Blackmoor heroes such as the Great Svenny, the Wizard of the Woods and villains like Moorkok the Slayer, Captain Krey and Stephen the Rock. 

Image Sources:
Cleric
Vampire




-Havard

 Mike Carr is a game designer perhaps best known for his game Fight in the Skies (1968, later renamed Dawn Patrol) and for writing the legendary adventure B1 In Search of the Unknown (1978). He also worked as an editor for TSR in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

As most Blackmoor fans will know, Mike Carr was one of the original players in Dave Arneson's original Campaign, playing the role of Bishop Carr, one of the characters who were immortalized in Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign published by Judges Guild.

Earlier this year, I contacted Mike Carr asking him about his memories from those early days of gaming with Dave Arneson, which he kindly agreed to answer and share with the fans of the Comeback Inn Forum. 

You can now read the Carr's response here. 

Picture Source

-Havard