Last Fantasy Campaign About to Conclude

The epic Blackmoor PbP campaign hosted at the Comeback Inn is reaching its final stages. Have the heroes managed to save Blackmoor from the destruction of the Egg of Coot?

Read the details of the final part, called After Blackmoor, here.



-Havard

My charcter just died!

Alright, nobody panic. I am not about to do anything irrational. It looks like our ongoing PbP, the "Last Fantasy Campaign" just shifted gear and is moving towards its end. Is our quest to rid the world of the Egg of Coot once and for all going to end in a TPK? We are certainly not the first to have perished at such a foolhardy task. I take comfort in the thought that my character, General Harwan, was killed in the same moment as the grandson of the Great Svenny, played by Greg Svenson from Arneson's original group.

Here is the last moment of General Harwan:

"At the same time, Harwan, around whom James' remaining soldiers have begun to return to a formation, is hit in the face, by the shaft of an Orcish axe, right in that long, painful moment when he sees his friend die... With a warrior's instinct, he rises his shield to parry another blow, but that way, gives an opening down below...He doesn't see or feel the axe, but when he sees into the eyes of his murderer, his own black sword still in hand, all he feels is the cold..."

Wait a minute. My 9th level fighter was killed by an Orc??? How embarassing is this? I am reminded of the dying words of Lindsey McDonald, a villain/hero character from Joss Whedon's Angel:

"You kill me? A flunky?! I'm not just... Angel... kills me! You don't... Angel..."

To my defense, it was an army of them, and severa of them were mounted on dragons. All in all it was a fun game. Death is part of the game and General Harwan, a military man, would not have liked to grow old. His life was dedicated to the defense of Blackmoor, a sort of analogy to my own efforts here on this blog. But dont worry, even if things look bad for our party in the PbP Campaign, I will go on promoting Blackmoor :)



-Havard

Last Fantasy Campaign Coming to an End?

Our ongoing Blackmoor PbP Campaign, DMed by Rafael has been going on since 2005. The Last Fantasy Campaign as it has become known as, has become legendary in the realm of forum based gaming. Now it seems the grand finale is approaching. "The Promised Land and The Ghosts of Summer will be the final parts of the Last Fantasy Campaign." Rafael says. He continues:

"Furthermore, with the end of our current story arc, our ambitious project, The Last Fantasy Campaign, will achieve the goal we had set for it: To bring closure to all the main story arcs from the original Blackmoor setting, and to effectively write that epilogue that never was."

Read Rafael's full detail on his plans for the conclusion of this more than 6 year long campaign here.



-Havard

Tell Me About Your Character

Dave Arneson's legacy lives on as Blackmoor is being played in numerous campaigns over the world even today. I'd love to hear more about those stories from games played by other Blackmoor groups out there, from the 1970s and up to today. Not just those lucky enought to have played with Dave Arneson himself, but anyone having played in Blackmoor. What were your experiences?

In Rafe's campaign I play this guy:

General Harwan of Starmorgan

He wasn't always a General of course. Young Harwan grew up in Newgate. His father died when he was quite young, and the boy was drawn to the legends of the towns own hero ruler, the Great Svenny, as a kind of replacement father figure. His real father was also a fighting man, leaving his son a family heirloom: The Sword Grief, said to have once been the weapon of King Robert's son. This might be the reason why he at a young age joined the Blackmoor Military. Being a disciplined and determined young man, he quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant.


It was while serving as a Sergeant that Harwan first encountered the Company of the Maiden. As Blackmoor's forces attacked the Afridhi occupied Duchy of Ten, Harwan's unit was all but wiped out. Joining forces with the Company of the Maiden, they defeated Toska Rusa and destroyed the Well of Souls, liberating what was left of the Duchy of Ten. In the years that passed, Harwan was promoted General and placed in charge of the New Duchy.


He is now approaching 40 and is of mixed Thonian and Skandaharian stock. The years have placed some heavy burdens on his shoulders, perhaps the reason for his now more confident bearing. Life in the court of the New Duchy has not made him soft however. He has preserved his powerful build and imposing stature. Harwan wears a heavy blue cloak, indicating lordhood, and dons Full Plate Armor when riding into battle. 

***

Do you have any tales of heroics in Dave Arneson's setting? I would love to hear about them. Post in this thread, or in the comments section here!





Image Source


-Havard

Experimental Play in the Last Fantasy Campaig PbP

In the ongoing Play by Forum game, my DM Rafe just posted the following:

My dear friends of the "Company of the Maiden",

and all those others who come here to read of your adventures!

For the fourth Episode in our sequence of scenarios and adventures,

we will deviate from the usual format:

Instead of presenting you a number of cutscenes, we will do a little bit of "meta".

As of the time I write this text, the game that has become "The Last Fantasy Campaign"

is about to enter its seventh year of consecutive action.

Now, before we enter the last battle, the "hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down"...

Let's take a moment and look back at those many years of gaming.

One pretty unique aspect of our game is that we have basically followed the same plots since the beginning;

before we enter the final stage of the game, I would like to shed some light onto them,

so my players and eventual lurkers know what has been going so far:

The First Part of the "Last Fantasy Campaign": The Grim Winter Cycle

In an earlier commentary on the series, I defined four basic plotlines:

The Egg Arc, The Thonian Arc, The Westryn Arc, and The Veil Arc; all of them developed by the players' actions,

mainly over the course of "The Grim Winter" and its companion games, which would be "The War of the Thieves",

and "The Road".

For me, as a DM, the Grim Winter was storyboard HELL, mainly because I had to make up most of the stories on the spot;

and while I now arrogantly boast that there are very few people other than Havard and me that know the setting

as thoroughly as we do, this was certainly not the case in 2005, when I started our campaign.

"The Grim Winter, Episode I" was just a random title I chose for its epicness, after a rather unpleasant experience

in my text production class in English, when my professor very strongly suggested that I should expand my vocabulary.

This was really the reason I got into PBP games first and foremost. To become a better teacher, GAAAH.

The game I started was really just a mix of two already published scenarios - one created by the good people at http://www.fraternityofshadows.com,

another by a Polish D20-producer, "The Forge", that later on would become famous as an illustration studio.

At that point, while I had a lot of fun charging the initial members of the party

(of which only the characters Erdath and Sven remain in the game today)

through an inn haunted by a ridiculously-hard-to-kill demon girl (our "Maiden"),

I never entertained the idea to make the game more than a one-shot.

My change of heart was really most caused by Greg, who plays the character Sven Ithamis in our game:

He told me his character's family history to such a detail that I couldn't but get hooked on it;

so emerged the idea of putting Sven and his companions against the other noble of note (to me) that Blackmoor

could muster, Bascom Ungulian.

In my version of the story, the baron of Glendower had been enthralled by the infamous Egg of Coot,

during his (canonical) rescue of his wife from the Orcish realm of Ohmfet;

you can read about this in some of the earlier cutscenes.

It would have been a f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s story, about how "The Company of the Maiden",

bearing now the curse of the epinomous demon-child,

hunted down the mad baron, twarted his murder attempt of King Uther, and finally fought him in the

famous dungeons of Glendower.

Alas, what happened? :) GAME happened; rarely did players in any of my games ever miss a plot so hard as

our group did with the Ungulian arc. :D ...And so, we kind of moved our focus.

Frankly, I am glad: My first attempt at the story was not even half as entertaining as what we later created together.

Also, the real reason for the party essentially failing the Ungulian arc was really nobody's fault:

The main reason for the many inconsistencies that an interested reader will find in our game logs was that the party roster

changed continuously within the first four Episodes of The Grim Winter.

In a party of eight, we had about fifteen people enter and leave within a year and a half,

until the group that we have today started to form. That made it virtually impossible to keep a consistent story:

From the assassin sent out to kill Sven (Mandle), to the magician unknowingly transporting Ran's phylactery (Morghrum),

well, you see: Dozens of story threads that would later prove an effort to weave together again in "The Promised Land"...

In retrospect, I wonder if I could have done this better, but then again,

who would have thought that this turned into the huge thing... :)

What remained about the story about Ungulian was really Ran,

who would turn into the party's major tormentor, and ultimately, the evil mastermind of all bad things.

I took Ran, word by word, from "The First Fantasy Campaign", where he is described as an android.

(If you follow the game, this just should explain SO MUCH.)

How sketchy my idea of him was, though, you can see in "The War of the Thieves":

If that game had gone at a faster pace, it would likely have been him that the party fought at the end of that game.

("The War of the Thieves" was very closely modelled after the mega-adventure "The Lost City of Gaxmoor",

by Troll Lord Games. If youwant to get an idea how the action would have developed, had we sticked to our

initial plan, take a look at that book, if you want.)

The last two episodes, that would detail the war between the Afridhi and the Blackmoorian army,

they were really just a bonus, because I enjoyed the game so much.

That we left the game open ended was really not so much planned;

had the party killed Ran during the Battle of the Longest Day, that would have been about it.

But they didn't.

...And so, a sequel.

...To be continued.

This looks like its going to be an interesting experience. More details here.

-Havard

The Empire of Owls

The Empire of Owls is a new game opening up at the Comeback Inn. This game promises to explore the southern parts of the world of Blackmoor's Great Kingdom.

"The Empire of the Owls" is set in the utmost southern province of Blackmoor's great Kingdom, in the lands of Ravilla, the ancient home of the Gray Elves, somewhat east the Wilderlands, and south of Blackmoor. This is not a canonical setting, so you won't find it on any map. "

Not only will the game take steps into yet unmapped territory, but it will also explore a new era in the world of Blackmoor, being set 90 years after the D20 line products.

"The game is set in the year 1120 of the Northern Calendar, as per the Blackmoor counting of years, or in the year 4522, as per Balozkinar's Corrected Commoner's Calendar from the Wilderlands. The wars in Blackmoor are long over, and the Empire of Thonia is history."

Another interesting feature is that it will involve dominion style play, perhaps resembling the companion rules from BECMI or the style of play seen in the Birthright setting. It seems like this game will be chat based rather than a regular PbP. My buddy Rafael is the DM, and at least one original Blackmoor player is among the participants!

More information on the game, and how YOU can join here.




 Image Source.

-Havard

Beholders of Blackmoor

Originally invented by Terry Kuntz, the Beholders first appeared in Supplement I: Greyhawk. I was never really a big fan of the Beholders to be honest, with their strange appearance and seemingly random powers. I tend to like monsters that fit into a certain theme, or are associate with some kind of mythology. I liked the idea of grouping many of the more bizarre creatures together as Aberrations, creatures from a distant plane of weirdness. I linked this to the Dimension of Nightmare from Frank Mentzer's BECMI cosmology.

My main reason for bringing up Beholders now is that they just appeared in Rafael's Blackmoor PbP Game, the Last Fantasy Campaign. Here they are described as Sentinels of the Egg of Coot. That is just brilliant! Not only does the round shape of the Beholders fit well with the Egg, whatever it is, but the Nightmare/Far Realm connection, also fits well with my Cthulhuesque interpretation of the Egg itself.

Illustration by Rob Torno







-Havard

Comeback Inn Forum Anniversary

One year ago, we started a new forum for Blackmoor, which we called the Comeback Inn. Since the Blackmoor lisence had ended, we feared that the ZGG Blackmoor forum would eventually disappear. We were right about that. But the Comeback Inn has proved a great replacement. It now has 114 members and 7662 Total posts! Our members include former ZGG employees and freelancers, original Blackmoor players, other gurus from back in the days as well as all the diehard Blackmoor fans. The Comeback Inn is also home to the longest lasting Blackmoor PbP, the Last Fantasy Campaign. If you haven't done so already, please register and join our conversations!



-Havard

Summarizing Blackmoor 2010

With Dave Arneson's passing the year before, things did not look good for Blackmoor as we entered 2010. The year began with Wizards of the Coast, not renewing their lisence with Zeitgeist Games, making the chances of seeing any official Blackmoor product in print in any forseeable future unlikely.

In spite of this, fandom were intent to carry the flame on. The readers of this blog one year ago, numbered 50. Now we are 99! Last february we launched the new Blackmoor Fan Forum; the Comeback Inn. I renamed my website, now called the Blackmoor Archives, to reflect its more defined role, with the forum and blog complementing eachother.

In March and April, I was happy to report, several gaming events dedicated to the memory of Dave Arneson and Blackmoor. On March 27th, the second Dave Arneson memorial game day was celebrated in New York City. On April 10, The second annual David L. Arneson Memorial Maritime Mayhem Miniatures Event was held at The Source Comics. I hope these events will return this year and go on for many years to come. 2010 was also the year when the Arnesonian RPG, Dragons at Dawn was published. In October, Full Sail University honored their former colleague. Last year, a new season of the legendary Blackmoor Play by Post game, the Last Fantasy Campaign was launched at the Comeback Inn with players including former Blackmoor players, former ZGG affiliates and die-hard fans.

The Original Blackmoor Players have also been kind to share their memories of gaming with Dave Arneson. Greg Svenson is a founding member of the Comeback Inn Forum and continues to contribute there. Stephen Rocheford told us about the first D&D archvillain. Bob Meyer told me about his Blackmoor memorial Game.  David Wesely ran Braunstein and gave  a podcast Interview. Thanks to Jeff Berry, we also learned about Deborah Naffziger who played Toska Rusa. Mike Carr also spoke about his memories of playing the first D&D Cleric in history in Arneson's Game. I am also in contact with other players who continue to be supportive of our work. More to be revealed on this later!

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who have been following this blog and responding to my forum posts at the Comeback Inn and the Piazza. You are the reason why I am doing this.

Those are but a few memories of 2010, all in all a great year in Blackmoor's history. All of these events make me optimistic about 2011. Let's make it even better than 2010!

-Havard

A small chat with Jeff Quinn

Last week, I had a small chat with Jeff Quinn. Jeff was one of the main writers involved with the Blackmoor D20 line. He contributed to the D20 Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor Sourcebook and wrote the Redwood Scar. He is also known for his work for Goodman Games. Jeff fondly remembers the days of working with Dave Arneson:

“Dave was a great guy and was so full of ideas for everything he did. Blackmoor was the jewel in my career, and my designs and gaming life are richer for knowing both Dave and Blackmoor”

Jeff Quinn is currently the owner of Dolmen Creative, which is in the process of publishing new RPGs using the D6 Open system. One of the projects Dolmen Creative are working in is Destiny6 RPG. Previously in this blog, I have mentioned how Jeff pays homage to Blackmoor in the Destiny6 Fantasy Setting.
How much of Blackmoor’s heritage will be seen in the final Destiny6 Rulebook?

“Consider this my take on Blackmoor (though I can't use the name) after the Afridhi invasion was repelled and the Egg was defeated... close to 200 years past the d20 version “

Jeff also showed me a few pictures of from the upcoming book. One picture shows a dwarf fighting a strange dragon. The dwarf is armed with twin flint lock pistols. The other picture shows a group of adventurers sitting around a table. One of the adventurers looks like a….Panda Samurai?

“Yes, that's an oriental panda warrior. In the second picture, the dwarf is fighting an evolved dragon. i love dragons... but I wanted Destiny6 to feel unique in its take on dragons... the typical western and eastern style dragons are banished to the monster books as fire-breathing treasure vaults... these guys, on the other hand, will evoke a bit more fear... they are smaller, hunters, and can come right into your home to get you.”

Bearfolk also made a small appearance in the Blackmoor Setting. They first appeared in Rafael’s Last Fantasy Campaign where the Bearman Hrrd was played by the legendary Rizak.

 Jeff Quinn also has a Q&A thread over at the Comeback Inn Forum and drops by regularly to answer questions.









-Havard

Inception (2010), Dreams and Blackmoor

I was watching the movie Inception (2010) the other day and really liked it. Not only did I like the action scenes, but I was fascinated by the concept of shared dreaming and delving deeper into someone's subconcious. Rob S Conley wrote a small review of the movie here.

Dragonsfoot poster Kveldulf made the following suggestions of how to adapt some of these ideas to D&D

On a side note, lots of ideas in there for both planar travel (transfer the film's idea of how things work in dream states to, say, astral travel and what happens when the silver cord is damaged or cut) and psionic combat (dreamer's subconscious projections taking on outside dreamers who intrude, and a few other ideas). 

In the Last Fantasy Campaign, we have been venturing through the Dreamscape lately as well. The characters have been visiting King Uther's subconcious in search of a way to prevent the destruction of Blackmoor and a way to get back at the Egg of Coot. I like how our DM, Rafael used this as a way to incorporate some of the more bizarre elements from Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor Campaign. We have now seemingly at last escaped the Dreamscape, so now we shall see what the real world might bring us of dangers...


Illustration: Gustave Doré's illustrations from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.









-Havard

[LFC] Skelfer Ard is the Ran of Ah Foo!

In the Last Fantasy Campaign, the game Rafael is running for us over at the Comeback Inn, a frightening revelation has just dawned on the heroes: Legendary wizard Skelfer Ard and Ran the Lich-King are one and the same!

Who are these guys again? Let's backtrack a little. Centuries ago, the magic users of the north were fighting over the Wild Magic that is so potent in the lands surrounding Blackmoor. Noone knows its true source, but many suspect it is tied to the very magical rock that Blackmoor Castle is built on. As these so-called mage wars raged on, Skelfer worked in his laboratory and came up with a way to control the wild magic, through the use of crystals. With his newly gained powers, he brought an end to the mage wars and set up an organization to keep magic under control in the future. This organization was called the Wizards Cabal. Once his work was done, Skelfer simply disappeared. Noone knows where he went off to, though the speculations have seemed without limit.

Lord Ran, or the Ran of Ah' Foo is another equally mysterious entity. He was believed to have started out as the puppet of the Egg of Coot, who then turned upon his master, seeking refuge in the west. For a while, he ran the Duchy of Ten, but this must have ended before the Afridhi invaded those lands.How could a good mage like Skelfer have been turned into a creature like Ran? Did he witness such dark things during the mage wars, that he could never go back to being truly good? Or did he fall under the spell of the Egg of Coot, just like Moorkok the Slayer?




-Havard

The Last Fantasy Campaign: Uther Lives!

The ongoing Blackmoor PbP, coined the Last Fantasy Campaign, and in which I play the character General Harwan, has taken a shocking turn of events. King Uther, believed to be dead and buried, is revealed to be alive!

As Vestfold and large parts of western Blackmoor have been destroyed by the Egg of Coot, the return of Uther hints to a turning of the tide. Could this be a chance for the Company of the Maiden to finally strike back at Blackmoor's enemies? I am excited to see what our DM, Rafael, comes up with next!








Image source: http://www.bzents.co.uk/blog.html


-Havard

New Releases from the Comeback Inn!

The two first major publications from the Comeback Inn were made available this weekend. They are based on the ongoing PbP game, collectively known as the Last Fantasy Campaign, and incorporate both Blackmoor and Wilderlands lore.

Both have been uploaded to the Blackmoor Archives (my website):

The Maiden's Blackmoor

"A short written companion, containing information on our past games, on the concrete changes we made to our setting,  AND the big "Maiden's Timeline", the backbone of the setting we use, containing about all information about our game that we can spare."

The Grim Winter PbP Backup Files

"The complete transcript of the "campaign that started it all", from December 2005 to April 2009. Docs come in txt and rtf format."

-Havard

The Last Fantasy Campaign

"The skies of the world were always meant to have dragons.
When they are not there, humans miss them.

Some never think of them, of course.

But some children, from the time they are small,
they look up at a blue summer sky and watch for something that never comes.

Because they know.

Something that was supposed to be there faded and vanished.

Something that we must bring back, you and I."

- Robin Hobb, "Golden Fool" 

WHAT BE... "The Last Fantasy Campaign"?

"The Last Fantasy Campaign", dedicated to the memory of Dave Arneson and Richard Snider, and consisting so far of "The Grim Winter", "The War of the Thieves", "The Road", and "The Promised Land" aims at bringing the tale of Blackmoor's struggle against it's many enemy, as begun by Dave Arneson and continued by many others, to a coherent ending. By the end of "The Company of the Maiden's" and their companions' adventures, the Blackmoor we have known for forty years will cease to exist. - At least in our campaign's own continuity...

HOW TO... Join campaign?

An invitation to join "The Last Fantasy Campaign" and "The Company of the Maiden" comes by personal invitation only. This is not because we would be a bunch of arrogant bastards, but because our group was established in 2005/2006, and the players have the same right as the DM to decide if someone new will join us, or who in particular. If there ever are free spots and we don't know whom to offer membership we will make a public rolecall.

HOW TO... Create character?

In 2005, this started as a d20 game, and remains so until today. Base for character creation is, essentially, everything ever published for D&D 3.5, by any company, as long as the character makes sense in our campaign environment. - Though I, as the DM, specifically encourage players to use either the material put out by Zeitgeist Games for Blackmoor, or by Necromancer Games, for Wilderlands of High Fantasy, for the creation and later, advancement of their PCs.

WHAT BE... "The Grim Winter"?

Started in December of 2005, and ended in March of 2009, "The Grim Winter" was the Company of the Maiden's first adventure and told the story of the Third War of Ten.
By the end of the campaign, the forces of Blackmoor had overthrown the evil Afridhi, albeit suffering great losses due to the treachery of the dread Bascom Ungulian. On the climax of the campaign, that later would have been called "The Battle of the Longest Day" by northern historians, King Uther, who had ruled and defended the Kingdom of Blackmoor since the days of the first war with the Egg of Coot, was said to have been severely wounded and to have later been abducted by the infamous lich-wizard Ran. The Company of the Maiden is said to have been among the last ones who saw Uther alive.

WHAT BE... "The War Of The Thieves"?

Starting in summer of 2006, and ending in spring of 2008, this was a side campaign to The Grim Winter, but advancing more slowly than the main game so players who couldn’t post as regularly as the rest didn’t have to quit our game. The War of the Thieves essentially told the further adventures of the thief Rowell and his companions, a group of NPCs the party had met during the first chapters of The Grim Winter, and featured an adventuring party participating in the Coven’s (the Blackmoorian Thieves Guild’s) conquest of the abandoned city of Mondburgh (based on Ernie and Luke Gygax’ lost city of Gaxmoor for Troll Lord Games’ setting of Erde). Though relatively short and admittedly not very coherent, the game had a huge impact on the development of our campaign and touched some of the topics that will alter be detailed in The Promised Land.

WHAT BE... "The Road"?

No relation to the famous book and movie. Running from March 2009 until December of the same year, "The Road", previously called "The Road to the Promised Land", was a collaborative writing effort by the players of "The Company of the Maiden" and chronicled the years after the Third War of Ten, and until six months before the beginning of "The Promised Land". On their quest to rebuild the war-ravaged lands of the Northern Marches, the split-up members of the "Maiden" survived a multitude of adventures, but ultimately could not prevent the second, and successful invasion by the Egg of Coot. By the end of this tale, many Blackmoorian cities had fallen to the enemy, while the Free People, led by Uther's and Risa Aleford's illegitimate son Mordred, had established to bring the front line to halt between Newgate and Vestfold.

WHAT BE... "The Promised Land"?

Our upcoming campaign, starting in February 2010, reuniting the old cast of characters, and set shortly after the events of The Road…, beginning with “the day on which Vestfold felll”… Word is that this will be the final stage, the last battle, and the end of days for the Kingdom of Blackmoor, as we know it…








Posted by Rafael 
(Edited by Havard)