Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 20:21:05 -0700 From: Lee Theisen Subject: [MYSTARA] - Blackmoor At 11:33 AM 10/7/98 -0400,"DJ Sahlas" wrote: > > I can't resist wading into this (it's one of my pet peeves regarding >authors who simply disregarded previously published facts, creating >inconsistencies in a previously coherent world) Much as I hate to see this thread resurface again, myself ('cause it usually ends up badly), I just have a few comments. > The original setting for Blackmoor was the Broken Lands. This is >according to the first published material to say so: DA 1 - Adventures in >Blackmoor. This is why the Inn Between the Worlds is in the middle of the >Broken Lands (it was in the middle of Blackmoor, the Gate in the IBtWs >transports people through time but not through space). This is also why the >Broken Lands are "broken" to begin with (Blackmoor blew itself up, leaving >the devasted terrain of the modern Broken Lands and obscuring most traces of >itself in the process). Comment #1: While I agree with this sentiment, even the DA modules are not entirely clear on this point. It is mentioned that the IBtW was buried under earth, and floods, and ended up where it currently is, hundreds of years after the cataclysm that destroyed Blackmoor. That, plus the description of the IBtW as "resting on a bowl shaped black rock formation" can lead to the assumption that the Inn itself was picked up and moved around over the centuries, finally ending up where it is. Admittedly, I fail to see how, even so, it could have moved hundreds of miles from its former location (as the HW maps would have us believe), but an argument could be made for it. I do agree, though, that the Broken Lands (and that region of the KW) were intended to be the location of Blackmoor, though. >Furthermore, this is why the NoS is under Glantri City (it is where the Beagle >was stranded, and where the final malfunction of the engines caused them to >heat up and sink into the ground - leaving no access tunnel). Astute >paleogeographers will note that the distance between the IBtWs and the Beagle >in the Blackmoor era is about the same as the distance between the IBtWs and >Glantri City in the modern era.(Triangulating based on the differences between >the north/south axises(axes?) in ancient and modern times allows for >calculation of the degree of planetary tilt that resulted from the explosion >and the Great Rain of Fire). Comment #2: It isn't entirely clear why Bruce placed the NoS underneath Glantri, but presumably it is as you say (that's my guess, but Bruce hasn't commented one way or the other). In fact, last time this topic arose, Bruce noted that, currently, the Blackmoor location from the HW map was the canonical location for it. He also didn't say whether (IIRC) he agreed with this interpretation or not. At any rate, Allston left himself an out for this in WotI, when he notes that an Old One moved the NoS to its present location. A cop out, IMO, but it's there. Note that he also mentions the Old One altered the NoS to its magic draining state. Another seeming "correction" to Bruce's earlier work on GAZ3 that didn't seemingly need any correcting, IMO. So take into account that Allston appeared to be doing a bit of his own retconning, as we call it in the comic industry. One last bit about that- the distance thingy really depends on what scale you're using. As Fabrizio pointed out to me recently, there are two different scales on the DA series maps. The one in DA1 is at 24 miles per hex, and covers a vastly greater area than the KW we know, while the maps in DA2 and 3 (DA3's being exactly identical to DA1, save for scale and some new towns/outposts), are both listed at 12 miles per hex. >Finally, the reason that a common tongue of sorts exists at all on Brun, and >the reason PCs are able to communicate with ancient Blackmoorians (who spoke >Thonian) is that modern Thyatis-based "common" is derived from ancient >Thonian. Comment #3: Yup. And I've always treated the term "Thyatis" as a sort of corrupted form of "Thonia". DA1 also makes mention of Thonia as a place (and time) recalled by the PCs, and that the house of Andahar (the first king of Blackmoor) is recalled as well as the last "Thonian Church of Remembrance" being burned within recent memory. For more, see my next comment. >In this case, I reasoned that the Empire of Thonia (which was indeed quite >vast) actually extended as far as a corner of modern day Skothar. The >collapse of the Thonian Empire that paralleled the rise of the Blackmoor era >led to the preservation of only the farthest-flung outpost of the previously >mighty Empire of Thonia as a distinctly Thonian region, (and then only as a >province of Blackmoor). Comment #4: Actually, there is a simpler explanation than that. DA1's history section mentions the current region of Thonia as "a pale shadow of it's former glory" (paraphrase). The insinuation is that the Thonians migrated to the current region known as Thonia following the destruction of Blackmoor. The remnants of this decadent Empire were never again able to regain their former glory. Along with this, then, I have always reasoned that there was another emigration from the Thonian region, but to the south, and the continent of Davania, where the Thyatian tribes eventually emerged. > Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. ;) Comment #5: All in all, a good dissection, and one that I am and always have been in wholehearted agreement with. :) Andrew "Cthulhudrew" Theisen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe mystara-l' as the body of the message.