Re: really old greyhawk stuff

Subject: Re: [GREYTALK] really old greyhawk stuff
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 18:03:41 EST
From: "Rip Van Wormer"
Reply-To: The GREYtalk Discussion List

In a message dated 3/24/99 4:12:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, BlakeD@waiariki.ac.nz writes:

> Does anyone out there have access to the Da series of modules?
>
> City of Blackmoor
> City of the Gods
> Duchy of Ten
> Temple of the Frog
> Adventures in Blackmoor?

City of Blackmoor was never released. I've seen City of the Gods, but didn't buy it. I do own Adventures in Blackmoor, and you can't have it. See this website, and download the file there, for basically everything known about Blackmoor: http://home.earthlink.net/~zimriel/Blackmoor/

Dave Arneson's website is at
http://www.geocities.com/~blackmoor1/
It has the original Blackmoor campaign map on it, which is about the same as the one in DA1.

Regardless, none of the above really qualifies as "really old greyhawk stuff," as by this time Blackmoor had become a completely independent world. Actually (this is how I understand it), it started out that way and was fitted into Lake Geneva's fantasy campaign when Dave Arneson came into contact with them, and from there it became part of Greyhawk. Much later, a few Blackmoor modules came out with the setting retrofitted into the distant past of the D&D default Known World setting (later Mystara).

Regardless, the modules don't have anything to do with Oerth. The City of the Gods module could probably be used to flesh out the rumored site of that name in the Flanaess' Blackmoor, but I personally thought I could do better (the items of technology from that module are available for download on the TSR website, in the Mystara section). I would instead look at the article in the latest Dragon (Mage vs. Machine), the Gamma World and Rifts games, the story about the City of the Gods in the Oerth Journal, and maybe even the Netheril boxed set.

That's not to say that the Blackmoor of Adventures in Blackmoor isn't anything like its namesake in the Flanaess. They are shaped somewhat similarly. Sort of. If you squint. And you ignore everything to the south. Ten isn't anything like Tenh, however, nor is it in anything close to an equivalent position.

This should be in the frequently asked questions file for this listserv, shouldn't it?