[Artifacts] Dave Arneson's Tome of Chaos

Note: This article was updated on May 16th to correct mistakes and add information provided by Dan Boggs and Jon Peterson. 

The Tome of Chaos

This dark artifact from the original Blackmoor setting is drawn from an adventure that Dave Arneson ran at different conventions in the 1970s. The book's cover is made from human skin and is adorned by a skull. Opening the book without speaking the proper rituals will release all kinds of evil undead spirits to destroy anyone in sight. The quest was simple. Venture into the dungeon below Castle Blackmoor and recover the book. The forces of darkness could not be permitted to have such a book in their posession. Deep within the dungeon there is a library filled with ancient tomes and scrolls. The Tome of Chaos was found on a pedistal at the center of the room. But why was the temptation to open the book so strong?

This artifact is not mentioned in any published material from Dave Arneson, but recently two separate accounts of Dave Arneson using this adventure for conventions has been discovered. The earliest account is from a convention in San Jose, California in 1976 where Dave Arneson and various other TSR personalities as accounted by in this youtube video by Jim Murphy. From Jon Peterson we learn that the same adventure involving the book was also used by Dave Arneson at Origins Game Fair at Staten Island New York in 1977. Arneson had quit TSR and TSR were boycotting Origins. 

Although the concept of an evil book is something that goes back in history, it is interesting that the Book of Vile Darkness appeared in D&D Supplement I: Greyhawk which came out in 1975, the the year before Dave used this adventure in San Jose. However, the effects of the Book of Vile Darkness are quite different from those of the Tome of Chaos so the two might be completely unrelated items. Or it is also possible that the book from Dave Arneson's campaign, which I have dubbed the Tome of Chaos was created much earlier by Arneson when he was developing the Blackmoor Dungeon. Over at the Comeback Inn, Blackmoor fans have been speculating to where in the dungeon this secret library might have been located. Right now, evidence points towards the library being found on Dungeon Level 5 even though this is not specified in either of the two published versions of the dungeon. If we learn more about the library's location or more details on the properties of the Tome of Chaos, I will make sure to share it!

Further discussion of this article here

Artifacts: Artifacts is a new series of articles where I write about powerful magical items and relics of the Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting which have appeared in any published version of the setting or in Dave Arneson's original campaign. Stay tuned for more! 

About the illustration: The hand crafted book depicted apparently exists in real life and was sold at the etsy website. Would be sweet to own one of these!



-Havard

New Blackmoor Livestreamed Campaign From Blackmoor Author Tad Kilgore and MMRPG Alumni

Live Streamed Dungeons & Dragons gaming is incredibly popular these days, so it is great seeing a live streamed game set in the first D&D campaign setting, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.

This campaign is hosted by Tad Kilgore who has a long history with the setting. He was campaign organized for the Blackmoor MMRPG and was the author of the Riders of Hak Sourcebook for the Blackmoor d20 line. The players in this campaign are also people with a history of writing for the Blackmoor MMRPG campaign as well as being long time friends of Tad.

The players include:

• Phil Slama, former head of Terror Inc. and MMRPG author. Phil has also released several 5E adventures which are available for free at The Comeback Inn.
• Jenn Barth, former MMRPG author
• Mathew Tearle, former MMPRG author and member of Terror Inc.
• Jimmy, a newcomer to Blackmoor. Which is also awesome! 

This campaign uses the D&D 5th Edition Rules and is centered around the Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor and starts out at The Comeback Inn. It is going to be extremely interesting to follow these adventures!

The Campaign is livestreamed in Twitch and is also available on YouTube. You can also follow the campaign on Facebook via Kilgore's Lair page and the Blackmoor Fans Facebook Group.



-Havard

Orc King of Blackmoor

The realm of Blackmoor has many enemies. Four major Orc Tribes each control their own corner of the North. The rise of the Orcs followed the destruction of the Temple of Id. Although chaotic in nature, all Orcs follow a single king. King Funk III. Plotting the destruction of Uther's Realm from the depth of the 10th level of the dungeons below Blackmoor, the Orc King is an ally of the Egg of Coot. Although Blackmoor is an important enemy, the Orc King also displays particular hatred towards the race of Dwarves. Through their history, six wars have been fought between Orcs and Dwarves, the sixth is still ongoing.

Under King Funk's rule, the Orcs have greatly expanded on the Blackmoor Dungeon, creating the dangerous path called the Orcian Way. Unfortunately, the Orc population of the Dungeon has taken a heavy toll against adventurers from Blackmoor. One such hero who has caused severe annoyance to the Orcs is the Great Svenny who gained the name Orcsbane from his heroic battles in the dungeons. This has resulted in King Funk placing a a hefty ransom on Svenny's head, though none have yet to collect this reward.


In the original campaign, the Orc King was played by Frederick (Freddy) Funk who sadly passed away in 2011. As with many of his players, Dave allowed Freddy to bring his creativity to the world of Blackmoor. He expanded the dungeon with areas such as the Orcian Way where one could hear God Save the Queen played backwards. Freddy also created his own fantasy world known now as Fred's World sharing some traits with Blackmoor.


What is more formidable than an Orc King with ideas?








Thanks to purple purple purple purple for reminding me of the music heard in the Orcian Way.

Image Source
Forum discussion of this article



-Havard

[characters] The Blue Rider

The Blue Rider is yet another of Blackmoor's legendary characters, just like the Wizard of the Woods or the Great Svenny. He appeared in Dave Arneson's campaign where the character was played by original group member, Bill Heaton. Bill's character was originally only known as William of the Heath and seems to have been a rather rougeish character, at first.

According to Greg Svenson, it was back in 1972 that Bill's character made the discovery what would turn him into the Blue Rider while the group was exploring the deepest levels of the Blackmoor Dungeon. There they came across an island surrounded by lava:

"William wanted to jump down to the island. Svenny was opposed, mostly ss self preservation thing. I couldn't see how we would ever get off the island if we managed to get there. William jumped anyway and managed to land on the island. The rest of us stayed on the ledge and watched. Mello took some chalk and wrote "Kilroy was here" along with the famous sketch of the head peering over a wall on the wall of the ledge. 

The dragon posed a puzzle for William. I don't recall the details, but he solved it and was was rewarded with a blue suit of magic armor and mechanical horse. I have always thought of the armor as a dark metalic blue, but the description was just blue. The armor was more like powered battledress then a suit of plate armor, for Sci-Fi fans. William doned the armor and somehow was back with us on the ledge. We all traveled back out of the dungeon."

Mello the Halfling (Played by Mel Johnson) was one of the Blue Rider's steady companions. The FFC relates how it was the armor that changed the Blue Rider's demeanor into that of a selfless hero turning him perhaps into the first Paladin or Cavalier type character in the history of D&D. After performing many heroics in the Blackmoor campaign, the Blue Rider was eventually made town constable of Blackmoor Town.

More discussion of the origins of the Blue Rider's Armor.
More discussion of this article.

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-Havard

The Art of Stefan Poag

I first came across Stefan Poag at one of the old Zeitgeist Games Forums way before we set up the Comeback Inn Forum. At the time, he was running one of the few Blackmoor websites on the Net other than the Blackmoor Archives. Poag did illustrations for various ZGG Blackmoor products including Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor.

This Michigan based artist has done alot of RPG illustrations over the last decade. His work has appeared in several of Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure modules and has a prominent place in the upcoming DCC RPG from the same company. Author Harley Stroh talks about further connections between the DCC RPG and Blackmoor here.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that much of Poag's more recent work also show his connection to Blackmoor:

Which Blackmoor cult could degenerate fanatic be obsessing about?

Whether intentional or not, this illustration reminds me of the illustration in the First Fantasy Campaign about the assault on the Black Castle of the Orcs

The Steam Bores of Blackmor is of course another familiar theme and an example of Blackmoor's many infernal machines..

I nicked these illustratios off Stefan Poag's Website. He also has a page dedicated to his art on Goodman Game's Website.




-Havard

Mordenkainen's adventures in Blackmoor

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

DA5 City of Blackmoor

Over at the Comeback Inn, we have been discussing vapourware products for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. That is, products which were planned, or even written, but never published. Most famous of these is DA5 City of Blackmoor. Supposedly, it was completed, but for various reasons never published back when TSR were doing the DA series. 


Although we will probably never get to see DA5 City of Blackmoor, it can be intersting to speculate to what that product may have contained. We do know that it was written by David Ritchie as part of the DA series and that Ritchie used Arneson's notes as a basis.

The title City of Blackmoor is what tells us the most of what this product is about. This would have been an adventure set in Blackmoor Town itself. Looking at the style of the other DA modules, there may likely have been room for more than just an adventure. The other DA modules have plenty of room for backstory, NPCs and additional setting material.

Since Ritchie was working from Arneson's notes, it would make sense to look at items like the FFC which would have been available to Ritchie. As mentioned elsewhere, it is likely that the map of Blackmoor town from the FFC would have been included. Most likely this would have been expanded upon, with more information about the different buildings than what the FFC provides.

The next part from the FFC which might be useful is the description of Castle Blackmoor. The Castle itself is a wonderful opportunity for adventure and the FFC provides alot of information about the different parts of the castle and its inhabitants.

From the castle, the next step would be the dungeons themselves. Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor and the FFC might both include hints on what DA5 may have contained. Most likely, this would have been the main focus of the adventure.

Finally, there is the metaplot. The entire DA series was written to allow PCs from the Known World to travel back in time and adventure in Blackmoor. It seems very likely that the same would be true for DA5. DA5 would also have to take into account that events of the previous DA modules, with the Afridhi having been defeated in DA4 etc. ZG's Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor has one big problem. The idea of a castle in the middle of Blackmoor, the royal residence, sitting on top of a 20 layered dungeon, home of demons and whatnot just does not make sense, does it? However, this was not so problematic in Arneson's own campaign. In his campaign, the forces of good were repeatedly driven out of Blackmoor town by the forces of the Egg of Coot. In this context, it made perfect sense to run a campaign where you were fighting to reclaim the city and the castle.

It is not unlikely that Ritchie would have deviced a similar storyline for DA5. Perhaps, after the Afridhi invasions, you would have a new invasion of the Egg's forces, lead by King Funk. This would basically repeat events from the original campaign, but allow the PCs to venture into the dungeons and defeat the Orc King once and for all. Leaving room to take the battle to the Realm of the Egg in a later DA module? 

Click here for more discussion of this product.




-Havard

New explorations of the Blackmoor Dungeons.

As mentioned, this Saturday was Dave Arneson Gameday on which Dave Arneson was honored with gaming activities in New York City. Tavis Alison has a great report on his blog about the exploration of the Blackmoor Dungeon, which keeps attracting adventurers almost fourty years after the Great Svenny first ventured into the Dungeons in Arneson's own game. Tavis is also kind enough to mention the Comeback Inn. I like that :)





-Havard

[Characters] The Great Svenny

Today the Blackmoor Blog celebrates the legendary Blackmoor character known as the Great Svenny. Svenny is the character played by original Blackmoor player Greg Svenson ever since he first joined Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor game perhaps as early as in 1970. He played the character actively in Dave's campaign between 1970-1975 and later for a convention in 1976 and a reunion game in 1991.

The Baron of Newgate has a history of countless adventures in the lands of Blackmoor. In an interview at Sham’s Gameblog earlier this year, Greg Svenson revealed that:

 “I participated in literally hundreds of adventures between early 1971 and 1975… I hardly even remember the famous Temple of the Frog and Valley of the Ancients adventures. I know I was there, but they were not as memorable for me.”

Two adventures do stand out in Greg’s memory though: Surviving the first dungeon adventure and the raid on the lair of Fred Funk’s Orc tribe on the 10th level of Blackmoor dungeon.

Today the Great Svenny is the Lord High Regent of the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Blackmoor.

Svenny is currently the Lord High Regent of the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Blackmoor:

“When I started gaming with Dave again in Orlando in 1999, I played Svenny’s son, Sol, although I called him Svenny Junior at first, until I put together Svenny's family history. I am currently playing Sol in an online play by post game (the Tomb of Rahotep in honor of Gary Gygax on the Wayfarer's Inn website). I have also been playing one of his grandchildren, Sven, in [The Grim Winter Campaign]...”

(Discuss the Great Svenny here)




-Havard