Editing Blackmoor (section)

==The DA Series==
Years later when BECMI D&D was being published, Blackmoor popped up again and was integrated by TSR into its default setting "[[Mystara]]" as an antediluvian or [[Precursors|precursor]] civilization.  Three modules were writen by David J. Ritchie and Dave Arneson:

* [[DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor]]: unites the Mystaran present with Blackmoor in the past
* [[DA2: Temple of the Frog]] and [[DA3: City of the Gods]]: a duology
Then they parted ways and Ritchie hustled this one out, against Arneson's will:
* [[DA4: The Duchy of Ten]]

Also in this period Arneson published, "The Garbage Pits of Despair", a Blackmoor adventure found in Different Worlds magazine.

The DA series sold well, despite the flaws of its components. Ritchie was ''about'' to do a DA5, for Blackmoor Castle proper. Also planned, or perhaps coterminous with that, was a present-day Mystara boxed set that would have incorporated Blackmoor - as had DA1. But [[Lorraine Williams|Lorraine]], in her infinite wisdom, decided to axe Blackmoor and Mystara both. While Bruce Heard has told everyone to move on, he is supposedly still upset over this.

As to the character of the DA adventures, this was more Ritchie's input than Arneson's - much as ''[[From The Ashes]]'' was Sargent's, not Gygax's. The time travel aspect was entirely inserted by TSR.

In the Ritchie vision, The Great Kingdom is here identified with the [[Basic Dungeons & Dragons|Master Set]] nation Thonia, but far in the past. Here the Kingdom / Thonia aren't the good guys; they're another Rome knockoff, like the collapsing Great Kingdom in the Flanaess.

Most of all - this is clearest in DA4, which is entirely Ritchie - something's happened to the west of the map. A new nation, the Afridhi, have overrun the Peshwah and annexed the Ten. Squeezed from the west, Blackmoor leads the surrounding baronies to secede from Thonia to the southeast. ''That'' is the war in the DA series' past; not the war which Arneson's group played out. The Afridhi serve a paraZoroastrian creature from the Sphere of Energy, Zugzul, who has a thing for fire.

(As for what's up with all the Iranian references, Ritchie had a throbbing hard-on for Northwest Frontier / [[Flashman]] stories. It shows.)

As matters stand at the start of DA1, one Taha Marcovic has rallied the northern marches of the Empire, like Bel Riose in ''Foundation''. Taha proposes to restore Blackmoor to the Empire. Blackmoor wouldn't normally mind, since Taha is more competent BY FAR than the losers whom Thonia has posted up here in the past. But - reasonably - the northerners suspect that Taha doesn't want the place for its own sake; he wants to drain it of its wealth and soldiery for a new adventure: taking the Imperial Purple. That would leave Blackmoor wide open to the Afridhi, or the Vikings - "Skandaharians".

One obsessive compiled a "Blackmoor Gazetteer" over the 1990s to attempt a harmony between all this material. It was no such thing, more of a collection of documents... in the full spirit of Judges Guild's efforts before him. Whether you call it "canon", is up to the reader - after all, to what extent is even ''DA4'' canon?