The First Fantasy Campaign: Facts About Blackmoor

It's Blackmoor Week 2020, during which I will be continuing my section-by-section review of JG 37 "The First Fantasy Campaign" on a daily basis.  Fittingly, the next section "Blackmoor" should have really been the first section of the book, in my opinion.

"Facts About Blackmoor" reprints the first part of Dave Arneson's article "Points of Interest in Black Moor", originally published in Domesday Book #13 (July, 1972), as discussed in Jon Peterson's blog post "Heresies of the Domesday Book" back in 2012.

Arneson covers the population (1,000 peasants, 100 soldiers and nobles, 4 wizards or sorcerers, 1 dragon, several trolls, about 100 elves, plus assorted ents, orcs, dwarves, werewolves, etc.), area (4,346 square miles, 60% forest, 20% swamp, 20% arable land), and resources.

Illustration from DA1 "Adventures in Blackmoor" (1986)

The section on ruling class contains information on events in the 1st year of the campaign:

The Baron Fant was placed in command of Blackmoor Castle after his successful operations during the first Coot invasion.  His nearest neighbor is Sir Jenkins who rules the northern most march of the Great Kingdom which rests on the actual frontier with the Egg of Coot.  Sir Jenkins prior to the honors bestowed upon him from the first Coot invasion was a noted bandit, driven to that extreme by the former ruler of Blackmoor, "the Weasel".  To firm the alliance of Fant and Jenkins, a marriage was arranged between them with Jenkins wedding Fant's cousin and Fant marrying one of Jenkin's relatives.

Dave Arneson, The First Fantasy Campaign

"Facts About Blackmoor" ends with a survey of the surrounding countryside:

Points of geological oddity exist in the Dragon Hills, Dragon Rock, the hill where Blackmoor Castle itself stands, the numerous pits that lead into underground caverns which run through the entire area.  There is also a grove of the Berrium Maximum Deciduous* trees which are found only in a few other areas in its wild state.  The underground caves which dot the area create a maze where the Elves and Dwarves make their homes along with several unclassified inhabitants and denizens of the darker places.  Wolf's pass is also an oddity consisting of a solid outcropping of rock from the apparently bottomless depths of a swampy inroad of the sea.  There are a number of solid rock outcroppings like this throughout the area which create several steep hills, rocky patches, etc that combined with the swamps and caves make the area one could spend a lifetime exploring.

Dave Arneson, The First Fantasy Campaign

*the legendary Super Berries, to be covered in detail, later this week