DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor

DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor is the introduction, for Mystara players, into Dave Arneson's world of Blackmoor. This happens by way of the iconic Comeback Inn, which by MAGIC now exists across time, here appearing in the Broken Lands of the Known World. So far, so like that Rainbow in CM7: The Tree of Life.

Unlike CM7 this plot-device is the adventure. David Ritchie helped organise all this, with Arneson's consent (so far).

Someone's found a Blackmoor coin in the modern day, and the party's off to find where it came from. Dave & David dump a textwall of expo on you, and then the Great Roc Of Plot pushes the party into the Inn proper. And NOW they're in trouble - since, as in that Judges Guild jumble of notes, you're only allowed out of the Inn if the innkeep lets you, and there hasn't been an innkeep in four millennia.

Since the party are Mystarans, they don't know any of this. Luckily the Inn has clues here and there about what's going on.

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

The adventure is in three parts: an exploration section, an interact-with-Arneson's-NPCs section, and the action.

On first entry, the Inn is abandoned except for whatever fools (or undead) have wandered in here, alongside a few time-travelers and elemental-planar intruders. Dave & David do pretty well at describing a dust-heavy, cobweb-encrusted para-gothic environment. Although the two maintain their habit of dumping word after wordy word as exposition, for instance Hepath Nun's sudoku note. The party, after thanking their gods they never had to listen to this crashing bore in person, can read still more exposition when they find Book IX of the Chronicles of Thonia.

The party also get the last hundred years of the Emperors of Thonia, from the bar ledger; although, these emperors don't matter to the plot which concerns the reign of Uther when Blackmoor is not a part of Thonia. The "Butterfly Effect" is not a thing in this module.

Last and most important, there's a time gate in the cellar. You enter the gate and roll d4-plus-n, n being the number of times you've taken the gate before. If that number is more than 5, you've entered Blackmoor during the reign of Uther. Plot twist: Uther's not there - rather, not then!

The map of the Inn is to be turned 90 degrees clockwise if played "uptime" in Blackmoor, if you're going by the Judges Guild maps. Not like it matters because once you get back then, you're legally restrained from leaving. Because Uther was taken through the time gate, which you just stepped through, so everyone suspects you had something to do with it.

The privy-council here, now calling itself the Regency Council because somebody's got to rule the place, quickly susses out the party's innocence and, also, its power-level. Meanwhile the party can meet the local colour, which means pretty much anybody who ever played in Arneson's world over the 1970s. And a couple of spies for Duke Taha Markovic, who's masterminded the kidnap.

So there's the plot, such as it is: get back "downtime" through the gate and rescue the king. (Maybe Dave & David in 1986 had a copy of Die Hard from a gate of their own.) Uther's guarded by a Warden, a 12th level Thonian wizard whom the Duke bribed to come up here. A very short and anticlimactic end to the reams of expo and character-interaction up to then.

Most of this module, therefore, is about sketching Blackmoor and environs in this context - such baronies as have pledged to Uther, and the surrounding lands who all want to take Blackmoor for their own purposes.

Pity that none of this matters because the party - and anybody who's stepped through the time gate - knows the future, in which future Blackmoor and Thonia have been ruined by a cataclysm.