The Northern Marches

Back in 2009, James Mishler posted some thoughts about the original maps of Blackmoor.  A few years later, Zenopus Archives compared the settlements between Dave Arneson's hand-drawn map in "The First Fantasy Campaign" and its fold-out poster maps of Blackmoor.

It's been unclear how the hand-drawn map relates to the fold-out poster maps, or how either correspond to any Dutch maps.  I was therefore intrigued to see a recent post by M. Griffith on the "Secrets of Blackmoor" blog, and this map, courtesy of William Hoyt:

Map of the Northern Marches, courtesy of William Hoyt, recently posted on the "Secrets of Blackmoor" blog and previously on Facebook.  (Original black and white version posted in December, 2016).

The map accompanied an early campaign letter, also provided by William Hoyt, describing an area referred to as the Northern Marches, a frontier land of the great Empire of Geneva.  The region is beset on all sides by enemies - bandits to the east, sea raiders to the north, a coven of unholy wizards to the northwest, and barbarian Picts to the west and southwest.

In describing the original campaign area for Blackmoor, Arneson stated:

The basic campaign area reproduced on a large mapsheet outside this book, was originally drawn from some old Dutch maps.  Much of the rationale and scale was based on data found with the Dutch maps.  Later, the game moved south and we then used the Outdoor Survival tm map for this phase of the campaign when the exiles from Blackmoor set up shop after the bad scene at Lake Gloomy.

Excerpt from "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977) by Dave Arneson

Note how the northern coastline and general position of waterways in William Hoyt's map corresponds to the southern part of the old Dutch map shared by James Mishler:

Map of the Northern Marches (left) and antique map of Holland (right).

Arneson goes on to describe changes to the original map:

In redrawing the first campaign map, I have decided that it would be advantageous to make some minor changes along the south and west borders to link it with the Judges Guild's 'Known World' area (as shown in the Guide to the City State).  My map is twice the scale, 10 miles per hex, and fits into the northeastern corner, bordering the Valley of the Ancients.

 Excerpt from "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977) by Dave Arneson

If the map of the Northern Marches was used as the original map of Blackmoor, then the hand-drawn map in "The First Fantasy Campaign" might be Arneson's redrawn map, not his original:

Map of the Northern Marches (left) and hand-drawn map from "The First Fantasy Campaign" (right).  Note the similarity of roads and settlements.

The minor changes along the south and west borders could refer to the desert (with rivers draining from it) to align the Blackmoor map with the Valley of the Ancients in the northeastern corner of the Judges Guild 'Known World':

Map #03 of the Judges Guild World Map (left) and hand-drawn map from "The First Fantasy Campaign" (right).

Update (May 10, 2020) - DH Boggs provides a compelling case in this post on his blog that the hand-drawn map is the one altered to fit on the C&C Society map, and the FFC map is the one Arneson is referring to, requiring minor changes along the south and west borders, as evident in the reproduction, below:

As Mishler points out in his post, the fold-out poster maps in "The First Fantasy Campaign" were probably created by Bob Bledsaw, no doubt using the original map of the Northern Marches (later, Blackmoor) that we now have access to:

Map of the Northern Marches (top left), antique map of Holland (top right) and fold-out poster map of Blackmoor from "The First Fantasy Campaign" (bottom).  Area enclosed by red border is clearly based on the map of the Northern Marches, the original map of Blackmoor.  Parts of the coastline are also recognizable from the antique map of Holland.

 
Over at The Comeback Inn, Havard provides more details, and Daniel Boggs mentions that the map and letter were mailed by Arneson to Rob Kuntz, before Chainmail was published.  Daniel discusses the map of the Northern Marches in detail on Wandering DMs.

Many thanks to M. Griffith for posting the map and campaign letter provided by William Hoyt!